363

 DISCOURSES ON WRITING IN THE EARLY MODERN OTTOMAN
BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARIES OF CALLIGRAPHERS


iv
ABSTRACT
Discourses on Writing in the Early Modern Ottoman Biographical Dictionaries of
Calligraphers
This thesis examines three Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers written
between the end of the sixteenth and the first half of the eighteenth century: Mustafa
‘Âli's Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân (d. 1600), Nefeszâde İbrahim’s (d. 1650-51) Gülzâr-ı
Savâb and Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib’s (d. 1758) Devhatü’l-Küttâb. By
considering the diversity of the representations of the act of writing and the figure of
calligrapher in the texts the problems and limitations that the conceptualization
“Islamic Calligraphy” carries are put forward and the practice of calligraphy in the
early modern Ottoman world is approached in a broader context. The changing roles
of calligraphy in social, cultural and political contexts are problematized by
examining the transformations in the representation of the act of writing and the
figure of calligrapher in the texts. Devhatü’l-Küttâb, the text in which the
transformations in the form and content of the genre are crystallized, is analyzed
within its historical context. In this analysis, the transformations realized in the
bureaucratic and ulema circles, the expansion of the written culture, the actors of
book culture and the changes in the field of calligraphy at the first half of the
eighteenth century constitute the focus points.
v
ÖZET
Erken Modern Osmanlı Hattat Tezkirelerinde Yazıya Dair Söylemler
Bu tez on altıncı yüzyıl sonu ve on sekizinci yüzyılın ilk yarısı arasındaki dönemde
yazılmış üç Osmanlı hattat tezkiresini incelemektedir: Mustafa ‘Âli'nin Menâkıb-ı
Hünerverân (d. 1600), Nefeszâde İbrahim’in (d. 1650-51) Gülzâr-ı Savâb ve
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib’in (d. 1758) Devhatü’l-Küttâb adlı eserleri.
Metinlerdeki yazı yazma ve hattat figürü temsillerindeki çeşitlilik dikkate alınarak
“İslami Hat” kavramının getirdiği sorunlar ve kısıtlamalar ortaya konulmakta ve
erken modern Osmanlı dünyasındaki hat pratiği geniş bir bağlamda ele alınmaktadır.
Metinlerdeki yazı yazma ve hattat figürü temsillerindeki dönüşümler incelenerek
hattın toplumsal, kültürel ve politik alanlardaki değişen rolü sorunsallaştırılmaktadır.
Türün içeriği ve yapısındaki dönüşümlerin billurlaştığı metin olan Devhatü’l-Küttâb
tarihsel bağlamı içinde analiz edilmektedir. Bu analizde on sekizinci yüzyılın ilk
yarısında bürokrasi ve ulema çevrelerinde gerçekleşen dönüşümler, yazılı kültürün
yayılması, kitap kültürünün aktörleri ve hat alanındaki değişimler odak noktasını
oluşturmaktadır.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My first and warmest thanks are for my advisor Derin Terzioğlu whose support and
encouragement through my graduate years have been invaluable. Her insightful
teaching and her seminar courses have always motivated me to study on the early
modern Ottoman reading and writing practices. I am indebted to her not only for
having supervised this thesis and answering my questions, but also for having
introduced me the various ways of looking to the early modern Ottoman world. Her
enthusiasm for Ottoman history and her scholarship will always be a source of
inspiration for me.
I am grateful to Çiğdem Kafescioğlu. Her seminar course on Ottoman art and
architecture and her valuable comments shaped this study a lot. I would like to thank
her for following my research from the first stages to the present. I also thank Hatice
Aynur for reading my thesis and making precious comments for its betterment.
I would like to thank Oya Arıkan and Buket Köse and my dear colleagues
Betül Kaya, Burcu Işıl, Işık Gürgen, Melike Sümertaş, Naz Özkan, Yener Koç first
for their friendship and second for excusing my absence of depertmental duties at the
last stages of this research. I could not imagine my graduate years without their
valuable friendship.
I am grateful to Engin Gündoğan, Özgen Kaya, Çağdaş Aydoğan and
Mustafa Aydoğan for their friendship and innumerable help on every issue on
copying during my graduate years.
Egecan Erdoğan, Yeliz Çavuş, Gamze Yavuzer, Ezgi Çakmak, Güliz Atsız,
Mehmet Talha Paşaoğlu, Begüm Aydın and Ece Zerman; knowing that you are
always there is invaluable.
vii
I owe my deepest gratitude to my family. I thank my parents Gülay and
Kerim Özakay for always standing by my side and supporting my decision to pursue
an academic career in history. I always feel lucky to share life with a brother like
Barış Özakay whose joy of life seems to be unending. Yüce Aydoğan who became
my closest friend and a part of my family at the saddest moment of my life has
shown me other ways of thinking past, memory and time. I am very happy that your
compassion, joy and wisdom are by my side. Thank you for always reminding me
the “shores” of literature to discover the world.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………1
1.1 Recent trends in studies on early modern Ottoman reading and writing
practices …………….……………………………………………………….4
1.2 The conceptualization of “Islamic Calligraphy”:
A critical discussion …..…………………………………………………….8
1.3 An overview of the studies on Ottoman calligraphy ……..………..…14
1.4 Alternative perspectives ………….…………………………………...20
1.5 The use of biographical dictionaries of poets in
Ottoman historiography ……….…………………………………………...26
1.6 Biographical dictionaries of calligraphers:
The genre and its antecedents ……………………………………………...30
1.7 Mustafa ‘Âli's Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân ……………………………......37
1.8 Nefeszâde İbrahim’s Gülzâr-ı Savâb …………………………………42
1.9 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib’s Devhatü’l-Küttâb ……………………45
CHAPTER 2: THE REPRESENTATION OF THE ACT OF WRITING AND THE
FIGURE OF THE CALLIGRAPHER .……………………………………………..50
2.1 The prefaces: The origins and wonders of writing …………...………51
2.2 The spoken word vs. the written word:
The superiority of writing …………..……………………...………………58
2.3 The saintly calligraphers and the holy texts ………………………......63
2.4 The calligrapher near the sultan: Scripts and the question of
imperial identity ……….……………………………………..…………......69
2.5 The geography of script ………………………………………….…...74
2.6 Calligraphy within artistic rivalry …………………...………………..78
2.7 Devhatü’l-Küttâb: Calligrapher in the milieu …………………….…..81
2.8 Imams and instructors at the Qur’an schools: New actors in the
transmission of calligraphy skills ……………………………………….....85
2.9 Meclises and friendships: Oral modes of
transmission of knowledge ……..………………….………………………91
2.10 Calligraphy in circulation: The calligraphy example as a transmitter of
knowledge ………………………………………………………………….92
CHAPTER 3: A CONTEXTUALIZED READING OF
THE DEVHATÜ’L-KÜTTÂB ……………………………………………………………..96
3.1 The historical context ……………………………………………........97
3.2 The life of the author within the biographical entries …………….....104
3.3 The author as spokesman of the community,
witness and connoisseur………………………………..……………..……107
3.4 The sources of Devhatü’l-Küttâb: Friends and books …………....…112
3.5 The representation of the members of the administrative and
bureaucratic circles ……………………...……….……………………….116
ix
3.6 The representation of the members of the religious establishment ....123
3.7 Calligraphy as a gentlemanly activity …...………………..…………127
3.8 Script type as an identity ma(r)ker ………………..…………...…….130
3.9 Busy with writing (Kitabetle meşgûl): Sülüs and nesih writers ……..134
3.10 The expansion of the written word ………...………..……………..148
3.11 Eighteenth-century Ottoman calligraphy ……………..…...……….151
3.12 The alphabetical ordering of the biographical entries as a sign of
transformation in the practice of calligraphy ………………...………..….157
3.13 Concluding remarks …………………………………....…………...162
CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION ………………………………………...…………166
APPENDIX A: TABLES …...……………………………………………………172
APPENDIX B: IMAGES ………………………………………………………...176
BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………...…………………212
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1. The opening page of a Qur’an in 30 parts ……………………………176
Figure 1.2. Part 29 of the same Qur’an …………………………………………...177
Figure 2. Qur’an in 30 parts ………………………………………………………177
Figure 3. Single volume Qur’an ………………………………………………….178
Figure 4. Single volume Qur’an ………………………………………………….179
Figure 5. Qur’an in two volumes …………………………………………………180
Figure 6. Part 22 of a 30-part Qur’an ……………………………………………..180
Figure 7. Single folio ……………………………………………………………..181
Figure 8. Double page with Sura 27:1-5 from an eight-volume Qur’an ………….182
Figure 9. Qur’an in two volumes …………………………………………………183
Figure 10. Single volume Qur’an ………………………………………………...184
Figure 11. Qur’an …………………………………………………………………185
Figure 12. Qur’an …………………………………………………………………186
Figure 13. Volume containing 12 suras of the Qur’an ………………………...…187
Figure 14. Single-volume Qur’an ………………………………………………...187
Figure 15. Panel of Hutûtu’l-Mütenevvia (Various Scripts) ……………………...188
Figure 16. Inscribed Shirt ………………………………………………………...189
Figure 17. Inscribed Shirt ………………………………………………………...190
Figure 18. Kıta ……………………………………………………………………191
Figure 19. Hüküm of Sultan Selim I ………...……………………………………192
Figure 20. Ferman of Shah Ismail ………………………………………………..193
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Figure 21. Mülknāme of Mehmed IV …………………………………………….194
Figure 22. Letter sent by Shah ‘Abbas to King Charles I of England ……………195
Figure 23. Kıta ……………………………………………………………………196
Figure 24. Kıta ……………………………………………………………………197
Figure 25. Kıta ……………………………………………………………………198
Figure 26. Kıta ……………………………………………………………………199
Figure 27. Calligraphic exercise ………………………………………………….200
Figure 28. Qur’an …………………………………………………………………201
Figure 29. Kıta ……………………………………………………………………202
Figure 30. Album of calligraphic exercises (Müfredât) ………………………….203
Figure 31. Page from an album of alphabetic exercises (Müfredât) ……………...204
Figure 32. En’am sura from the Qur’an …………………………………………..205
Figure 33. Two kıtas ……………………………………………………………...206
Figure 34. Kıta ……………………………………………………………………207
Figure 35. Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât of al-Juzuli copied by Şerife Emine Safvet ………..208
Figure 36.1. Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât ……………………………………………………209
Figure 36.2. Illustration of the Prophet’s Mosque (Mescid-i Nebevî) ……………210
Figure 36.3. Illustration of the city of Medina and its environ …………………...211
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of this thesis is to examine a practice neglected in the studies on
early modern Ottoman manuscript culture: the physical act of writing. I will focus
my attention on the early modern biographical dictionaries of calligraphers and I will
analyze the discourses on calligraphy, the representation of the physical act of
writing and the figure of calligrapher in these sources. Put differently, I aim to
examine the genre of biographical dictionary of calligraphers to shed light on the
early modern Ottoman writing culture.
This chapter provides a general outline and conceptual background of this
study. First, I will point out the general neglect of the physical act of writing in
studies related to early modern Ottoman written culture, and I will try to highlight
possible contributions of this study to the understanding of early modern Ottoman
written culture. Then, a critical discussion on the conceptualization of “Islamic
calligraphy” and the established notions of calligraphy will follow. I will delineate
the reasons for my preference to use the term calligraphy in a wider sense so that it
includes a variety of practices of writing. After I expose some of the problems of the
historiography on Ottoman calligraphy I will touch upon some alternative
perspectives, which have guided this study. After I problematize the ways
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers have been used in Ottoman historiography,
I will focus on the characteristics, antecedents and the history of the genre in general.
Lastly, I will give some information on the content, form, structure and copies of the
texts on which I will focus in this study.
2
Although this thesis primarily focuses on an early eighteenth-century
biographical dictionary of calligraphers, that is, Devhatü’l-Küttâb (The Tree of
Scribes) 1 written by Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib (d. 1758); it would be impossible
to appreciate the changing discourses on and representations of calligraphy and the
scribe/calligrapher without consulting and examining the earlier Ottoman
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. For this reason, in the second chapter I will
briefly examine two earlier biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, namely
Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân (Epic Deeds of Artists) (completed in 1587)2 by Mustafa ‘Âli
(d. 1600) and Gülzâr-ı Savâb (The Rose-garden of Proper Conduct)3 by Nefeszâde
İbrahim (d. 1650-1651), and I will pay attention specifically to how these authors
discussed the practice of calligraphy and calligraphy materials, the history and the
necessity of writing and its socio-political uses.. The chapter will examine the
representation of the calligrapher in the three texts. I will show how this
representation significantly changes in Devhatü’l-Küttâb through the author’s
tendency to portray the act of writing and the figure of calligrapher within a more
diversified worldly and corporeal context.
1 For the edition of the text that I will use throughout my thesis, see Ayşe Peyman Yaman, “Hat Sanatı
İçin Kaynak: Devhatü’l-Küttâb: İncelemeli Metin Çevirisi” (Unpublished M.A. thesis, Marmara
Üniversitesi, 2003). Henceforth, I will cite this source under the name of Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib
and the title of the original text in question. All translations from the Devhatü’l-Küttâb into English
are mine.
2 For the edition of the text that I will use throughout my thesis, see Esra Akın-Kıvanç (ed. and trans.),
Mustafa ‘Âli’s Epic Deeds of Artists: A Critical Edition of the Earliest Ottoman Text about the
Calligraphers and Painters of the Islamic World (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2011).
3 For the edition of the text that I will use throughout my thesis, see Fehime Demir, “Türk Hat Sanatı
İçin Kaynak Gülzâr-ı Savâb: inceleme-metin çevirisi,” (Unpublished M.A. thesis, Marmara
Üniveritesi, 2004). Henceforth, I will cite this source under the name of Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi
and the title of the original text in question. All translations from Gülzâr-ı Savâb into English are
mine.
3
In the third chapter, I will shift my focus to Devhatü’l-Küttâb, which differs
significantly from the earlier texts in both its form and content. My main concern in
this chapter will be to account for the changes in the form and content of the genre in
relation to the broader social, political and cultural changes during the first half of
the eighteenth century. I will try to understand the variety of individuals interested in
calligraphy, the author’s emphasis on the career lines and his tendency to present the
skills in calligraphy as a tool to get social power within the context of the sociopolitical
changes in the early eighteenth century. In other words, the third chapter
will be an attempt to understand the Devhatü’l-Küttâb within its historical context.
The tables in the Appendix that give quantitative data on the three texts
would make my arguments more comprehensible. Also, in some parts of my thesis I
will refer to the calligraphy examples located in the Appendix. Since it is not the
primary concern of my thesis I will not evaluate and examine the stylistic features of
these calligraphy examples. These images provide exemplary works of some
calligraphers which are mentioned throughout the text and show the way some
specific texts look like such as official correspondences and calligraphic or
alphabetic exercises.
4
1.1 Recent trends in studies on early modern Ottoman reading and writing practices
Recent scholarship on Ottoman history has shown a growing interest in the history of
books and reading.4 Texts from the Ottoman era are studied not only as texts and in
relation to other texts, but also in relation to various social practices and within a
broader socio-cultural context. Instead of consulting texts only for their content,
scholars have also begun to examine how texts were read and received in the time
period in which they were produced. This approach has put the focus on another
actor alongside the written text and its author: the reader. In this regard, it might be
said that studies on Ottoman book history have evolved into studies on the history of
reading by expanding their range of questions and scope in a similar vein to early
modern European historiography.5 Thus, the field is no longer dominated by studies
4 For some of these studies see Tülün Değirmenci, “Bir Kitabı Kaç Kişi Okur? Osmanlı’da Okurlar ve
Okuma Biçimleri Üzerine Bazı Gözlemler,” Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yaklaşımlar 13 (Güz, 2011): 7-43;
Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire (New York:
I.B. Tauris, 2007), 185-204; Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo’s Middle
Class, Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, (Ithaca, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004); Hanna,
“Literacy Among Artisans and Tradesmen in Ottoman Cairo,” in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine
Woodhead (New York: Routledge, 2012), 319-331; Christoph K. Neumann, “Üç Tarz-ı Mütalaa:
Yeniçağ Osmanlı Dünyası’nda Kitap Yazmak ve Okumak,” Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yaklaşımlar 1
(2005): 51-76; Khaled El-Rouayheb, “The Rise of ‘Deep Reading’ in Early Modern Ottoman
Scholarly Culture,” in World Philology, ed. Sheldon Pollock et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2015), 201-224; Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the
Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Chicago: Stanford University Press, 2013); Osmanlı Kitap
Kültürü: Carullah Efendi Kütüphanesi ve Derkenar Notları, ed. Berat Açıl (Ankara: Nobel Yayın,
2015).
5 For a discussion on the transition from book history to the history of reading see Roger Chartier,
“Frenchness in the History of the Book: From the History of Publishing to the History of Reading,”
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 97 (Worcester, Mass: American Antiquarian
Society, 1987), 299-329.
5
that examine the rates of book ownership and the socio-economic backgrounds of
book owners through the quantitative analysis of sources like probate records or
library catalogues. Instead, Ottomanists now try to answer questions about
transformations in the practices of reading and writing and about the relationship
between oral and written culture by examining a wider range of sources from
miscellanies to auto/biographical narratives, and from illuminated manuscripts, to
marginalia.6
The present study has also been inspired by the above-mentioned shifts
within Ottoman historiography. Yet, instead of reading practices, it focuses on
another widely ignored social practice: the physical act of handwriting, which
remained the most prevalent form of reproducing texts in the early modern Ottoman
Empire. It seems to me that our understanding of Ottoman manuscript culture will
be deficient if we focus only on the authors and consumers of texts. A more
comprehensive understanding of early modern Ottoman manuscript culture and
reading and writing practices can be achieved only when the consumers and
producers of texts are dealt with together. In the historical studies on reading and
writing, for the most part, the reading practices and the circulation of manuscripts are
considered. But the major medium and the provider of the formation of written
culture, that is to say, handwriting itself and its transformations are left to the field of
palaeography, where historical approaches are largely absent. However, writing is
6 For some examples see Serpil Bağcı, “From Translated Word to Translated Image: The Illustrated
Şehname-i Türki Copies,” Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World XVII
(2000):162-176; Tülün Değirmenci, “An Illustrated Mecmua: The Commoner’s Voice and the
Iconography of the Court in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Painting,” Ars Orientalis 41
(2011):186-219; Eski Türk Edebiyatı Çalışmaları VII: Mecmûa Osmanlı Edebiyatının Kırkambarı, ed.
Hatice Aynur et.al. (İstanbul: Turkuaz Yayınları, 2012); Emine Fetvaci, Picturing History at the
Ottoman Court (Bloomington&Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2013).
6
neither static nor ahistorical. The cultural value of writing has changed throughout
the centuries and in different localities; and so has the representation of individuals
who have the ability to write and who have a “professional” relationship with written
culture. For this reason, this thesis attempts to examine the culture of calligraphy, the
social attitudes toward writing/calligraphy and the way writing/calligraphy and
individuals having abilities in calligraphy are represented within texts. Of course, it
goes far beyond the limits of an MA thesis to examine this topic comprehensively;
hence, I will limit myself here to only one type of source, which has until now been
neglected by Ottomanists interested in the history of reading and writing in the early
modern period; the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
Although these texts cover the biographies of individuals who are interested
in calligraphy, I will not focus on the aesthetics of calligraphy or deal with art
historical questions. Since the genre consists of the biographies of individuals who
had intense relations with written culture, I find them to be valuable sources that help
us see the material conditions and the major actors of manuscript culture, the ways
and agents of transmission of knowledge of writing/calligraphy and pre-print book
culture. Above all, since the texts contain representations of the act of handwriting
and the calligrapher through Qur’anic verses, hadiths, sayings, poems and anecdotes,
they provide an opportunity for the researcher to examine the discourses on the
practice of calligraphy and the transformations within it.
7
“[T]he historical significance of writing” and “the social values that [writing
or literacy] carried” has changed according to time and place.7 Yet, what we find in
most of the studies concerning the history of writing is only the story of the
emergence of the alphabet. As if writing is an ahistorical phenomenon, historical
narratives concerning the evolution of writing in later periods are extremely rare. By
the evolution of writing, I understand not only changes ın the form of writing and its
standardization or formalization in time but also changing attitudes toward the craft
of handwriting, as a historical phenomenon and a social practice, in various historical
contexts. In this sense, my approach to the Ottoman biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers is similar to the framework articulated by Brian Spooner and William
L. Hanaway in the introduction to a recent collective volume on the history of
writing and the social history of written Persian in the early modern Persianate
world.8 To regard writing as a historically evolving phenomenon also brings forth
some other functions of writing than recording, communicating and aesthetics.
Having skills in writing could also carry social power and enhance the individual’s
social status. In this regard, examining the representation of individuals who had the
ability to write beautifully in the Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers
can show the social values of writing and the discourses on writing in the early
modern Ottoman world. Such an approach can help us answer questions about
7 Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order, ed. Brian Spooner and William L.
Hanaway (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvenia Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
2012), xi.
8 They draw their framework and approach in the introduction to the edited volume. See Brian
Spooner and William L. Hanaway, “Introduction: Persian as Koine: Written Persian in World
Historical Perspective,” in Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order, ed. Brian
Spooner and William L. Hanaway (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvenia Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology, 2012), 1-69.
8
whether skill in handwriting was merely seen as an artistic accomplishment or
whether it also provided the individual with social and political power. An attempt to
examine the representation of calligraphy and the calligrapher in the Ottoman
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers can also give some clues about the notions
of calligraphy and its relationship with the political authority, the role of calligraphy
as a component of group identity and its association with members of such corporate
groups as ulema and scribes of the Imperial Council.
1.2 The conceptualization of “Islamic Calligraphy”: A critical discussion
1.2.1 The scopes of the terms calligraphy and calligrapher
The existing problems with the approaches prevailing in most of the studies on
Ottoman calligraphy are very much due to the conceptualization of “Islamic
calligraphy,” which is envisioned as having a monolithic and linear history. It is
necessary to touch upon the problems and restrictive scope of both the concept of
“calligraphy” and the qualifying adjective, “Islamic.”
There is an ambiguity in the definition of calligraphy. For example, although
they pertained to different functions within the cultural and bureaucratic spheres, a
kıta and a ferman are taken to be examples of calligraphy. Today, in major art
galleries in Istanbul, kıtas, fermans, panels (levha), hilye-i şerifs, En’âms, Evrâds and
Delâ’ilü’l-hayrâts, talismanic objects like tunics and bowls and writing materials like
pen cases, ink pots and sharpeners covered with writing are all exhibited under the
9
rubric of “Islamic calligraphy.” Additionally, the catalogues of calligraphy do not
seem to have any well-articulated criteria for the presentation and the classification
of these works. Thus, although there exists a difference between the abovementioned
examples in terms of function, content, form and size, they are all easily
identified as examples of calligraphy.
On the other hand, the same catalogues and exhibitions do not include many
texts that are mentioned in the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers as having
been written or copied by the individuals who were interested in or who
professionalized in calligraphy. For instance, such texts as Kadı İyaz’s Şifa,
dictionaries, Mustafa ‘Âli’s Künhü’l-Ahbar, and Katip Çelebi’s Atlas and
Cihannüma, documents written in the kadi courts like hüccet and documents written
for bureaucratic purposes are mentioned in the Ottoman biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers but are excluded from modern studies on calligraphy. I believe that this
exclusion is very much related to the hesitation to call a non-religious text or a text
that might be understood as a type of everyday writing as an example of “Islamic
calligraphy.” Hence, it might be said that the scope of the term calligraphy is
ambiguous and more restrictive than is apparent.
For the purpose of comprehensibility, I will use the term calligraphy in my
thesis, but also keep the above-mentioned problems in mind. Suffice it to say that I
do not conceive of calligraphy as a restrictive practice as most of the scholarship
does. Throughout my thesis I use the term calligraphy to mean quite simply the
practice of beautiful writing and cover with it a wider range of writing acts from
producing a kıta, to copying religious and non-religious texts and preparing
10
bureaucratic documents at the same time. It is important to notice that the type of
writing that the written sources of calligraphy speak of is not an ordinary one, but
one which is sophisticated and has an aesthetic purpose. Above all, since the
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers themselves refer to writing and its process
with variable and interchangeable words like hüsn-i hatt, hüsn-i kitâbet, kitâbet,
tahrîr, hatt, küttâb sanatı, fenn-i kitâbet, mektûbe, yazı, meşk and taklîd, I consider it
to be historically more appropriate for this thesis to have a more inclusive approach
towards the concept of calligraphy. Additionally, I believe that the writers of
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers do not refer only iconographic examples of
calligraphy like panels with Qur’anic quotations or names like Ali or Muhammad,
hilyes or inscriptions when they talk about hatt or kitâbet. In these instances, they
imply a larger practice involving skills in governmental correspondence and copying
religious and non-religious texts. Similarly, the description of the individuals whose
biographies are covered in the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers testifies to
the broad range in the practice of calligraphy in the minds of the Ottoman authors of
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. Rather than using only the term ‘hattat’
which implies a professionalization of calligraphy, they use words like küttâb
(scribes), erbab-ı hatt ü kalem (people of writing and the pen), hoş-nüvîsân (those
write beautifully), nessahân (writers of the script of nesh) and talik-nüvîsân (writers
of the script of talik). Also, the texts do not cover the biographies of only the
professional calligraphers but also people who had different occupations and took an
interest in calligraphy for different reasons as I will discuss later on. For this reason,
I will also use the term calligrapher in a broader sense to mean professional
11
calligraphers, scribes and copyists at the same time. In some parts of the thesis,
according to the context, I will use merely the terms scribe and copyist without
mentioning the term “calligrapher.” I will deal with these questions in detail in the
next chapters in which I will try to historicize the different attitudes towards the
practice of calligraphy in the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
1.2.2 On the conceptualization “Islamic Calligraphy”
The use of the adjective “Islamic” and the historiographical problems it raises are not
peculiar to the field of calligraphy. Although, I will limit myself to the problems with
the conceptualization of “Islamic calligraphy,” many of these problems also apply to
such conceptualizations as “Islamic Art” and “Islamic Architecture”.9 The use of the
adjective “Islamic” to define a calligraphy work is vague and problematic, too. Other
than denoting all forms of calligraphy produced by Muslims, it is not clear what the
use of the adjective “Islamic” says about the works it qualifies. The adjective Islamic
supposes an artistic unity in the calligraphy practices of various cultures. Thus, the
concept of “Islamic calligraphy” prevents one from examining artistic diversity and
from developing comparative perspectives on the calligraphy cultures of, for
9 For the problems with the conceptualization of “Islamic Art” in general, see Gülru Necipoğlu, “The
Concept of Islamic Art: Inherited Discourses and new Approaches,” in Islamic Art and the Museum:
Approaches to Art and Archaeology of the Muslim World in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Benoît
Junod et al. (London: Saqi Books, 2012), 57-75 and Avinoam Shalem, “What do we mean when we
say ‘Islamic art’? A plea for a critical rewriting of the history of the arts of Islam,” Journal of Art
Historiography 6 (June, 2012): 1-18, accessed September 5, 2015,
https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shalem.pdf
12
example, the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals.10 In contrast to the supposed stylistic
unity the calligraphy examples from various geographies and historical periods
display a multiplicity of form and style (see Appendix B, Figures 1-10).
Additionally, it is not certain what kind of a relation exists between the Islamic faith
and the calligraphy examples identified as Islamic. For example, it is not clear why a
ferman communicating the written order of the political authority, and an example of
kıta, a single sheet calligraphy, are taken as examples of Islamic calligraphy when
they have nothing to do with Islamic faith or ritual.
It is seen that the practice of hatt finds its equivalent in English with the word
calligraphy in many studies. Yet, at the same time, hatt is seen as a totally different
phenomenon than the other cultures of calligraphy. However, there are few studies
dealing with the differences between the practices of calligraphy and also between
the values attributed to writing practices within the European, Chinese, Japanese and
Islamic cultural spheres.11 There is no study explaining explicitly the reasons to
10 For a comparative perspective on the epigraphy programs of the great mosques of the Ottoman,
Safavid and Mughal Empires see Necipoğlu, “Religious Inscriptions on the Great Mosques of the
Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires,” Hadeeth Ad-Dar vol. 25 (2008) (Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah,
Kuwait National Museum): 34-40 and Necipoğlu, Qur’anic Inscriptions on Sinan’s Imperial Mosques:
A Comparison with Their Safavid and Mughal Counterparts,” in Word of God-Art of Man: The
Qur’an and its Creative Expressions, ed. Fahmida Suleman (Institute of Ismaili Studies Conference
Proceedings, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 69-104.
11 Two exhibition catalogue make an exception by bringing works from different contexts under the
category of calligraphy. But, unfortunately editors do not make any comment on the conjunction of
the works. See From Concept to Context: Approaches to Asian and Islamic Calligraphy, ed. Shen Fu
et al. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986) and Fırça ve Kalemin İzinde Sınırları Aşmak:
Doğu ve Batı Yazı Sanatından Seçmeler / Transcending Borders with Brush and Pen: Selected Works
of Eastern and Western Calligraphy, ed. Çağatay Anadol, trans. Ayşen Anadol and Carol La Motte
(İstanbul: Sabancı Üniversitesi Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi, 2010). Victor H. Mair draws attention to some
of the similarities between the Persian and Chinese cultures of calligraphy. See Victor H. Mair,
“Persian scribes (munshi) and Chinese Literati (ru): The Power and Prestige of Fine Writing
(adab/wenzhang)” in Literacy in the Persianate World, ed. Brian Spooner and William L. Hanaway,
388-414.
13
differentiate hatt from calligraphy in other cultures. Yet, there is a tendency to see
hatt as a phenomenon peculiar to Islamic culture, which is presumed to give writing
a sacred aura. Although recent historiography in Turkey has witnessed an interest in
the practice of calligraphy, no study attempts to lay bare the conditions behind the
attribution of “sacredness” to calligraphy.
Today when one says “hattat” (calligrapher), the figure that comes to mind is
a pious man who is writing the word of God at peace as an act of ritual worship.
Thus, an Islamic spiritual character is ascribed to calligraphy. It is thought to be a
complementary aspect of Islamic piety. But this kind of perception must also have its
history. The lack of historical perspective on the question creates a curtain that
prevents us from evaluating calligraphy in a worldly context within the daily life.
Thus it becomes almost impossible or unthinkable to attribute a practical function to
calligraphy.
Starting out with similar questions, Spooner and Hanaway who focus on
writing in the Persianate world talk about similar problems: “The academic
discussion of Persian writing has been complicated by the distinctive cultural value
of calligraphy.”12 As I said, the ascription of an Islamic characteristic to calligraphy
makes it impossible to think of it within the more practical and worldly contexts in
which it functions. This restrictive approach is deeply ingrained in the established
historiography on the value of calligraphy in ‘Islamic’ culture, the emergence,
standardization and expansion of the proportioned Arabic script, and the rise of
writing as an art.
12 Brian Spooner and William L. Hanaway, “Introduction: Persian as Koine,” in Literacy in the
Persianate World, 21.
14
According to mainstream historiography, the religion of Islam gives a sacred
place to calligraphy. For this reason, in order to show the significance of calligraphy
since the emergence of Islam, in these studies we find many quotations from Quranic
verses and hadiths which praise beautiful handwriting and one of the fundamental
materials of writing, the pen. Thus, these studies imply that without any need for
socio-political explanation, calligraphy is essentially significant in the religion of
Islam. The established essentialist and ahistorical approach prevents us from
analyzing the emergence of the phenomenon of calligraphy and of different scripts
historically. The scholarship on calligraphy in Turkey consists essentially of a mere
cataloguing of calligraphic works. Scholars of calligraphy either do not attempt to
present a historical narrative or present a distorted and uncritical one. Yet, several
scholars have criticized the existing scholarship. At this point, I find it important to
touch upon the general tendencies of scholarship on Ottoman calligraphy and then,
the alternative perspectives suggested by Oleg Grabar and Yasser Tabbaa, who both
adopted a critical and historical approach that positions the practice of calligraphy
within a broader social, cultural and political context.
1.3 An overview of the studies on Ottoman calligraphy
The mainstream studies on Ottoman calligraphy tend to adopt the concept of
“Islamic calligraphy” without any scrutiny and narrate the history of Ottoman
calligraphy rarely mentioning any interaction with other traditions of calligraphy in
15
various geographies.13 This causes the supposition of an isolated Ottoman
calligraphy practice. These studies narrate a linear history of Ottoman calligraphy,
which continuously develops towards perfection. Accordingly, the “perfection” of
Ottoman calligraphy is realized in four steps. These four steps are identified with
four master calligraphers, who are, respectively, Ibn Muqla (d. 940)14, Ibn al-
Bawwāb (d. 1024)15, Yaqut al-Musta‘simi (d. 1299?) and Şeyh Hamdullah (d. 1520)
who became prominent with the calligraphic styles that they found and renovated
(see Appendix B, Figures 11-14). Accordingly, the studies generally begin by
narrating the emergence and development of the proportioned script between the
ninth and thirteenth centuries by giving references to the importance of calligraphy in
the religion of Islam. In the introductions to these studies, we find a repetitive
narrative which gives almost no place to the political and social transformations that
13 Some works which fix the general approach on the Ottoman calligraphy are Ali Alparslan, Osmanlı
Hat Sanatı Tarihi (İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2004); M. Uğur Derman, The Art of Calligraphy in
the Islamic Heritage, trans. Mohammed Zakairya (İstanbul: IRCICA, 1988); Muhittin Serin, Hat
Sanatı ve Meşhur Hattatlar (İstanbul: Kubbealtı Neşriyatı, 2003); Ahmet Süheyl Ünver, Türk Yazı
Çeşitleri: Türk Hattatları Yazılarından Örneklerle Birlikte Ba’zı Faideli İzahat Verilmiştir, (İstanbul:
Yeni Labarotuvar Yayınları, 1953). For a review of the studies on the Ottoman calligraphy see İrvin
Cemil Schick, “Türkçe Matbu Hüsn-i Hat Literatürüne Toplu Bir Bakış,” TALİD, Cilt 7, Sayı 14
(2009): 249-273.
14 Ibn Muqla was the vizier of the Abbasid State for several years during the reigns of caliph al-
Muqtadir (r. 908-932), al-Qahir (r. 932-934) and al-Radi (r. 934-940). After he fell into disgrace he
was imprisoned and then executed in 939-940. The invention of a proportioned script, al-k̲ h̲ aṭṭ almansūb,
is attributed to him. By relying on dots to measure each letter he systematized the “Six
Styles” or “Six Pens.” He determined the measure of each letter according to the letter alif. The “six
styles” are nesih, muhakkak, reyhani, sülüs, rika and tevki. The Six Pens display in majuscule and
miniscule forms. According to the established narrative Ibn Muqla’s followers spreaded the six styles
to various geographies. For further information on Ibn Muqla see Sourdel, D.. "Ibn Muḳla."
Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online, 2015. Henceforth I will cite this source as EI2.
15 Ibn al-Bawwāb was the librarian of Buwayhid Bahāʾ al-Dawla at S̲ h̲ īrāz. He partook in the
Buwayhid governmental circles. According to the narrative he perfected the reforms of Ibn Muqla in
writing. From his time onwards cursive script became a prestigious script and started be used in
Qur’anic writing. For further information on Ibn al-Bawwāb see Sourdel-Thomine, J.. "Ibn al-
Bawwāb." EI2. Brill Online, 2015.
16
might have influenced the emergence of the proportioned script. Ibn Muqla, Ibn al-
Bawwāb and Yaqut al-Musta‘simi always appear as a “trinity”16 who made
innovations that determined the major forms and styles of calligraphy throughout the
centuries. It is said that after the death of Yaqut al-Musta‘simi who was known for
his skills in Six Pens and his reforms17 in nesih script his students carried his style
into various geographies such as Baghdad, Anatolia, Egypt, Syria, Iran and
Transoxiana.18 It should be noted that Yaqut al-Musta‘simi’s contributions to the
nesih script are not known clearly because scholars have difficulties in attributing
Qur’ans to him. David James mentions that the authenticity of even the rare Qurans
attributed to Yaqut al-Musta‘simi, is uncertain.19 Although there exists such
problems of authenticity, the studies on Ottoman calligraphy situate Yaqut al-
Musta‘simi as the mainstay of the Ottoman style but do not portray the exact impact
of his style on the Ottoman calligraphy. Yet, they state that the history of Ottoman
calligraphy begins only with his impact on Anatolia.
Generally a lacuna between the emergence of the proportioned script, the
renovations done by Yaqut al-Musta‘simi (d.1299?) and the emergence of the first
16 I borrowed the term from Yasser Tabbaa. See Yasser Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art
During the Sunni Revival (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001), 175, note.6.
17 The biographical dictionaries of calligraphers use various terms in order to refer to the innovations
done by masters of calligraphy, including teftîh, tehzîb, tebyîn, tashîh, ihtirâ’ and ibdâ’. In paralell to
the frequent usage in the scholarship, I use the word “reform” as an umbrella term to refer to the
various meaning of the above-mentioned terms.
18 Uğur Derman, Letters in Gold: Ottoman Calligraphy from the Sakıp Sabancı Collection, Istanbul,
trans. Mohamed Zakariya et al. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 7.
19 David James, The Master Scribes: Qur’ans of the 10th to 14th centuries AD, ed. Tim Stanley (New
York : Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1992), 58.
Sheila S. Blair investigates some copies of Qur’ans signed by the name of Yaqut al-Musta‘simi. See
Sheila B. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 242-253.
17
Ottoman canon master Şeyh Hamdullah (d. 1520)20 within the historical narrative is
observed. Between the two masters almost one hundred and fifty years of an
undefined break, from 1299 to 1450s, exists. Uğur Derman does not find anything to
touch upon as a major change in the history of calligraphy in Anatolia during this
period and identifies the period merely as “a continuation of the ‘Abbasid school.”21
Yet, I do not find his argument sufficient in order to understand the backgrounds or
possible influences for the development and canonization of Şeyh Hamdullah’s style.
Explaining one hundred and fifty years merely with the continuation of the Abbasid
school means to ignore possible other sources of influence in the Anatolian
geography such as the calligraphy styles that came with the incoming Ilkhanid and
Akkoyunlu scribes.
Şeyh Hamdullah is generally represented as the master who created a
distinctively Ottoman style by renovating Yaqut al-Musta‘simi’s style. In other
words, he became the “initiator” of the history of Ottoman calligraphy. Yet, the
characteristics and the process of the formation of an Ottoman style of calligraphy
are not defined clearly. In other words, it is not certain in what ways the so-called
Ottoman style differed from the other calligraphic styles and which socio-political
contexts provided the formation of an Ottoman style in calligraphy.
One of the major problems of the historiography on Ottoman calligraphy is
related to the issue of periodization. The scholars subscribe to a periodization which
is determined merely with the names of calligraphers. In this regard, most of the
20 For the biography of Şeyh Hamdullah see Muhittin Serin, “Hamdullah Efendi, Şeyh” in TDVİA
vol.15 (İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1997), 449-452.
21 Derman, Letters in Gold, 15.
18
studies construct a history of calligraphy whose engine is the master calligraphers
such as Şeyh Hamdullah, Ahmed Karahisarî (1470?-1556) and Hafız Osman (1642-
1698). The periods in the history of Ottoman calligraphy are defined by the impact of
the styles that were developed by these masters.22 Yet the historical conditions and
qualities of their impacts on Ottoman calligraphy are not defined explicitly. The
scholars tend to create artistic geniuses without scrutinizing the historical contexts of
the expansion of the styles of certain individuals.23 I do not deny that these
calligraphers may have made significant attempts to renovate and change the
dominant styles in calligraphy. But, many historiographical problems arise with the
equivocal explanations of the scholarship. In order to show the expansion of the style
of an individual the studies only count the names of the students of that individual
and refer to his works with ambiguous aesthetic analyses. In fact, a more historical
and comprehensible approach on the expansion and impact of certain calligraphy
styles might be developed by taking the written sources of calligraphy into
consideration.
Another major tendency of the scholarship is to divide the studies into
chapters according to the script types like divani, celi and sülüs24 (for different script
22 For example Süleyman Berk’s periodization in his book on the history of Ottoman calligraphy is as
follows: Şeyh Hamdullah and his école, Ahmed Karahisarî and his école, etc. See Dr. Süleyman Berk,
Devlet-i Aliyye’den Günümüze Hat Sanatı (İstanbul: İnkılab Yayınları, 2013).
23 Prof. Edhem Eldem drew my attention, in an oral communicantion in 2015, to the similarity
between the modern portrayal of calligraphers as artistic geniuses equivalent and the position of
Renaissance artists in European historiography. Even Oktay Aslanapa makes a connection between
the renovations of Şeyh Hamdullah on calligraphy and the attempts of Renaissance artists to draw
human figures according to the anatomical measurements. See Oktay Aslanapa, Türk Sanatı (İstanbul:
Remzi kitabevi, 2003), 387.
24 For example see Muhiddin Serin, Hat San’atımız (İstanbul: Kubbealtı Neşriyâtı, 1982), 31-46 and
Alparslan, Osmanlı Hat Sanatı Tarihi, 103-199.
19
types see Appendix B, Figure 15). Yet they do not give any reason for taking the
script type as a category to narrate the history of Ottoman calligraphy. Also, the
historical reasons for the emergence of new scripts and the popularity of certain
script types in some historical periods are not clearly examined. Rather, some vague
definitions and aesthetical analyses are carried out. First, the origins and then, the
characteristics and a brief history of script types are introduced. It is necessary to
note that the script types are narrated as products of “Turkish national genius,” which
is an explanation that centers on a highly modern concept and thus, makes the
narrative totally ahistorical. For example Ismayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu defines divani
and rika as “essentially Turkish scripts.”25 In a similar vein, in Muhittin Serin’s study
while talik is defined as a “Persian script” (Acem yazısı), divani, rika and siyakat are
defined as “Turkish scripts.”26 In Alparslan’s study, divani, celi divani and rika
scripts are investigated under the chapter titled “The Scripts that Were Invented by
Turks.”27 Moreover, these studies exhibit a hierarchical structure that puts the
“Turkish style” above all others without any analytical explanation.
Even as the above-mentioned studies on Ottoman calligraphy have made
significant contributions to the field of Ottoman calligraphy, they have also exhibited
very similar approaches, and rather than producing historical explanation, they repeat
the clichés. They recount the biographies of some Ottoman calligraphers using the
information they gathered from the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers but
25 Ismayıl Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, Türklerde Yazı Sanatı (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1993), 62-
67.
26 Serin, Hat San’atımız, 72 and 76.
27 Alparslan, Osmanlı Hat Sanatı Tarihi, 189-203.
20
without any recourse to the historical context as well as without specifying any
criteria underlying their selection. Thus, the field of Ottoman calligraphy relies on
ahistorical and teleological approaches and constructs a historical narrative without
scrutinizing concepts such as Islamic, Turkish and calligraphy. Rather than cultural
complexity, the field emphasizes a supposed artistic unity by referring to an
undefined process of the formation of an Ottoman style of calligraphy realized in
isolation from other calligraphic traditions. Additionally, the field does not pay much
attention to the political, social and cultural functions of calligraphy. By highlighting
the sacred connotations of calligraphy, the field fails to notice the practical roles of
calligraphy. It should be admitted that the existing scholarship on Ottoman
calligraphy does not offer a helpful background to the researcher. For this reason,
while dealing with the written materials on calligraphy, a critical stance towards the
existing scholarship is required.
1.4 Alternative perspectives
In the chapter on writing in his book, The Mediation of Ornament, Oleg Grabar
traces beauty and artistic quality in writing, how writing became an object of
criticism as an artwork and as an object valued by connoisseurs and collectors and
the characteristics of writing as an ornament in Islamic art and architecture.28 After
presenting various functions of writing he argues that “[t]o subsume all these
28 Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1992), 47-
118.
21
different actions of writing under the single term of calligraphy only confuses the
meanings of writing.”29 Thus, rather than relying on an essentialist and simplistic
understanding on the evolution of writing as an art, he attempts to follow historical
questions regarding the different actions of writing, its evolution and transformation
by way of examining the “concrete tradition of writing.”30 For this reason, he refers
to the historical context to understand the reasons for the emergence and
standardization of scripts.31 While doing that he underlines his methodological
approach: “[D]ifferent periods require different interpretations and … the assumption
of a single ‘Islamic’ attitude to writing is a debatable and dangerous fiction.”32 To
avoid this “dangerous fiction”, he points out possible social, political and
administrative factors and settings for the standardization of writing beginning with
the Abbasid vizier Ibn Muqla (d. 940) and Ibn al-Bawwāb (d. 1022).
It should be noted that these two individuals with Yaqut al-Musta‘simi are
referred frequently both in the primary sources and in the secondary literature on
calligraphy. Mostly, the primary sources venerated these individuals as the founders
and promoters of the proportioned script. Their names appear alongside religious and
saintly figures and the authors treat them in a similar manner. The vast bulk of the
secondary literature has taken all the sayings and praises in the primary sources
literally and does not attempt to understand the world around the texts and to
29 Ibid., 62.
30 Ibid., 63.
31 Ibid., 65.
32 Ibid., 113.
22
examine the ways of representation of these individuals in the texts. For this reason,
mainstream scholarship does not provide political, historical and cultural
backgrounds for the creation of a proportioned script and its rapid expansion.33
Grabar, on the other hand, suggests possible explanations for this ignored
background. According to him, the expansion of Islamic states and the rapid
dissemination of the Arabic script to the newly conquered lands required “clarity and
efficiency in administrative communications.”34 Also with the spread and availability
of paper, which was a cheaper writing material than papyrus or parchment, writing
rather than the writing material became valuable.35 Additionally, the increase in
literacy and materials or mediums caused the appearance of “distinctiveness in
writing […] [as] one of the criteria for social distinction.”36 Thus, it might be
concluded that from the early tenth century onwards beautiful and distinctive
handwriting became one of the components of elite identity in the early Islamic
states.37 Thus, throughout the chapter, Grabar traces the broad setting of writing in
the early Islamic period. Rather than adopting a one-dimensional approach, focusing
exclusively on the sacred connotations of writing in the religion of Islam, he favors a
multi-dimensional approach, and takes into account the conditions of manuscript
culture, the cultural world of the elites, popular attitudes toward writing, and the
33 For similar observations see Yasser Tabbaa, “Canonicity and Control: The Socio-political
Underpinnings of Ibn Muqla’s Reforms,” Ars Orientalis, Vol. 29 (1999), 93.
34 Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament, 77.
35 Ibid., 77.
36 Ibid., 77.
37 Ibid., 77.
23
effects of the transformations within the bureaucratic structure on the form and
reception of writing.
Another scholar who stands at a critical distance from the essentialist
scholarship is Yasser Tabbaa.38 In a similar vein to Grabar, Tabbaa examines the
social and political factors that led to the transformation of Arabic writing as seen
through the changes in Quranic writing in the period between the tenth and eleventh
century. His main problem is to understand and historicize the changes in scripts. He
aims to find the reasons behind the abandonment of the angular Kufic script that had
been used for a very long time for copying the Qur’an and the replacement of this
script with the newly standardized cursive scripts of Ibn Muqla and Ibn al-Bawwāb.
The curious point in this transformation is the preference for the standardized scripts,
which were created in a secular and administrative sphere, also for copying the
Quran.39 Another curious point is the intervention of scribes working in the state
bureaucracy in the reproduction of Quran manuscripts, which was previously
dominated by early Quranic calligraphers who were probably from the ulema
circles.40 For an explanation of this shift, rather than internal problems within the
craft, Tabbaa points to external factors.
Tabbaa talks about two general groups of Arabic script before the reforms of
Ibn Muqla: a Qur’anic/Kufic script and a variety of secular scripts used by scribes
38 Yasser Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art During the Sunni Revival, 25-73. Also see
Yasser Tabbaa, “The Transformation of Arabic Writing: Part I, Qur’anic Calligraphy,” Ars Orientalis,
Vol. 21 (1991), 119-148; Tabbaa, “The transformation of Arabic Writind: Part II, the Public Text,”
Ars Orientalis, Vol. 24 (1994), 119-147; Tabbaa, “Canonicity and Control.”
39 Tabbaa, “The Transformation of Arabic Writing: Part I, Qur’anic Calligraphy,” 141.
40 Tabbaa, “Canonicity and Control,” 94.
24
and copyists. He observes that the early Kufic Qur’ans, written before the
replacement of cursive scripts in the tenth century, were illegible because of
“ambiguous and often undifferentiated letter forms and a scattered disposition on the
page” and “were intended to restrict the reading of the Qur’an.”41 He also observes
that contrary to the common belief; semi-angular and cursive scripts were already
used in the chancery documents and in non-religious books before the tenth century
when the reforms of Ibn Muqla and Ibn al-Bawwāb were realized. This means that
Ibn Muqla inherited a variety of cursive scripts used in secular spheres and as Tabbaa
states “the rules for his proportioned writing did not emerge from Qur’anic script but
were ultimately based on book scripts.”42 Yet, he systematized the earlier trends43
and the new proportioned script promoted by Ibn Muqla made an impact and led to
the emergence of semi-Kufic Qur’ans, which have a legible script in contrast to their
predecessors. After the reforms a striking resemblance between Qur’anic and non-
Qur’anic writing was observed.44
Besides these discussions related to the form and standardization and the
evolution of cursive script, Tabbaa puts forth a new dimension for the
transformations in Qur’anic writing: The efforts of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir (r.
908-932) to save the caliphate’s “nominal position as the safeguard of the Islamic
community and enforcer of the correct religion” in the face of the attacks of Shii
41 Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art, 28.
42 Ibid., 34.
43 Ibid., 40.
44 Ibid., 40.
25
Qarmatians and Fatimids.45 The efforts for promoting an Abbasid state version of the
Quran were crystallized in the attempts of state functionaries to create an explicit and
ostensive Quranic script. Thus, Tabbaa demonstrates that Ibn Muqla’s reforms and
their adoption for copying Qurans were very much related to a power conflict and to
the caliphate’s effort to establish a canonical reading of Quran. In the eyes of the
Muslims, the new script would be the sign of their reading the correct and orthodox
rescension.46 By concretizing Grabar’s suggestions on alternative readings of the
history of calligraphy, Tabbaa presents the social and political framework for the
reforms of Ibn Muqla. Although Tabbaa and Grabar do not touch upon the written
materials on calligraphy, their alternative perspective encourages one to read these
texts in a multi-dimensional way.47
Until now, I discussed some conceptual problems with the category of
“Islamic calligraphy.” I argued that the label “Islamic” is too ambiguous and veils
the social and political grounds of the evolution of calligraphy, and I remarked that I
prefer to use the term calligraphy to refer to a wider array of writing practices. Such
an approach on calligraphy would be more fitting with the multi-dimensional
character of the practice of calligraphy, which also comes out in the Ottoman
45 Ibid., 43.
46 Ibid., 43.
47 I do not take Tabbaa’s explanations on the increasing visibility of cursive scripts for granted. For
me, Tabbaa’s study demonstrates the significance of considering the social, political and cultural
contexts in order to introduce alternative perspectives on calligraphy. Yet, it should be noted that his
arguments on the increasing usage of cursive script and its relation to the Sunni revival are criticized
by Alain George. Contrary to Tabbaa, George finds the existence of a relationship between the scribal
evolutions and the religio-plitical context of the period doubtful. For his arguments see Alain George,
The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy (London: Saqi Books, 2010), 138-146. For a discussion on the use of
calligraphy in the Fatimid architecture for propaganda see Irene A. Bierman, Writing Signs: the
Fatimid Public Text (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
26
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. The revisionist approaches on the works of
calligraphy and historical positions of calligraphers do not find its equivalent in the
case of written materials on calligraphy. For the present concerns of this thesis, I
believe that it is important to touch upon the use of Ottoman biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers in Ottoman historiography. Since the use of
biographical dictionaries of poets and of calligraphers in historiography has many
common departure points, to touch upon biographical dictionaries of poets would be
helpful. In fact, the problems encountered in the use of biographical dictionary of
calligraphers are not very different from the use of other types of biographical
dictionaries in Ottoman historiography. For this reason, some introductory remarks
on the place of the biographical dictionary, and especially the biographies of poets in
Ottoman historiography would be helpful.
1.5 The use of biographical dictionaries of poets in Ottoman historiography
Biographical dictionaries have been one of the most consulted primary sources in the
studies on early modern Ottoman literature and history. As biographical compendia, they
narrate the life stories and career paths of Ottomans.48 It would not be wrong to say that
in a field in which the relative scarcity of first-person narratives is widely lamented,
48 For a general introduction on the genre of biographical dictionary or tezkire see James Stewart-
Robinson, “The Tezkere Genre in Islam”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies Vol. 23, No. 1, (Jan.,
1964): 57-65; Wadad al-Qadi, “Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Cultural Significance,”
in The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, ed.
George N. Atiyeh (Albany: State University of New York Pres, 1995): 93-122; Wadad al-Qadi,
“Biographical Dictionaries as the Scholars’ Alternative History of the Muslim Community” in
Organizing Knowledge: Encylopaedic Activities in the Pre-Eighteenth Century Muslim World, ed.
Gerhard Endress ( Leiden: Brill, 2006), 23-75.
27
biographical dictionaries have become a source of consolation. Ottomanists have
resorted to biographical dictionaries to find information on a certain cross-section of
Ottoman society. Thus, within the existing scholarship these compendia have been most
commonly used as databank rather than as complex texts that demand analysis in their
own right. There are relatively few studies that have taken these texts as their focus and
which have tried to evaluate their content, language, rhetoric and style comprehensively
by considering the historical contexts of their production and consumption.
A glimpse into the available literature shows that most researchers have
failed to examine the biographical dictionaries in their historical context. For
example, questions regarding the notions of poetry, the position of the poet within
the biographical dictionary itself, the preferences in the characterization of the poet
by the author of the biographical dictionary are rarely raised. But rather, we find
numerous published editions of Ottoman biographical dictionaries of poets that were
produced between sixteenth and nineteenth centuries without any historical approach
and any attempt of contextualization.49
The other type of study that moves a step further from the transcription
studies focuses on some biographical and artistic topoi that are found within the
biographical dictionaries of poets. For example, they expose social and economic
backgrounds, career paths, education, personalities, skills of the poets, patronage
relationships and relationships among the poets as they reflected in the biographical
49 See, for instance, Kudret Altun, Tezkire-i Mucîb: İnceleme-Tenkidli Metin-Dizin-Sözlük (Ankara:
Atatürk Yüksek Kurumu Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı, 1997); Adnan İnce, Tezkiretü’ş-Şuarâ
(Ankara: Atatürk Yüksek Kurumu Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı, 2005); Süleyman Solmaz, Ahdî
ve Gülşen-i Şu’arâsı: İnceleme-Metin (Ankara: Atatürk Yüksek Kurumu Atatürk Kültür Merkezi
Başkanlığı, 2005).
28
dictionaries which were produced in different historical and social contexts.50 In my
opinion, it is misleading to juxtapose the various biographical dictionaries of poets
and to analyze them under ‘shared’ categories without taking the historical/epochal
differences into account. Because such an approach presupposes that all the
biographical dictionaries of poets can be examined under the same historical
categories. And the supposition that they were produced within a shared sociocultural
milieu might lead to misunderstandings such as ascribing undifferentiated
notions of poetry, of the figure of the poet, of creativity and talent within different
historical contexts.
As a result, it is not surprising to find a monolithic and linear historiography
of Ottoman poetry. However, the fact that various biographical dictionaries of poets
produced within a huge span of time should lead the scholars to examine diverse
notions on the art itself, its practitioners and socio-cultural conditions. The recent
studies on biographical dictionaries of poets call for alternative perspectives on these
sources. Rather than limiting the use of these sources as in the above-mentioned
approaches they expanded the scope of questions and argue for a detailed
examination of the sources themselves rather than the biographies of specific
individuals.51
50 For example see Harun Tolasa, Sehi, Latifi ve Aşık Çelebi Tezkirelerine göre 16.y.y.’da Edebiyat
Araştırma ve Eleştirisi I ( İzmir: Ege Üniversitesi Matbaası, 1983) and Filiz Kılıç, XVII.Yüzyıl
Tezkirelerinde Şair ve Eser Üzerine Değerlendirmeler (Ankara: Akçağ Yayınları, 1998).
51 See, for example, the articles in Aşık Çelebi ve Şairler Tezkiresi ÜzerineYazılar, ed. Hatice Aynur
and Aslı Niyazioğlu (İstanbul: Koç Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2011) and Walter G. Andrews, “The
Tezkere-i Şuara of Latifi as a Source for the Critical Evaluation of Ottoman Poetry” (Unpublished
PhD. diss., University of Washington, 1970). For some studies which have a historical approach on
the Ottoman biographical dictionaries of poets see Walter G. Andrews and Mehmet Kalpaklı, The Age
of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society
29
Biographical dictionaries of calligraphers produced in the Ottoman lands
have enjoyed a similar fate as regards scholarship. They have been mostly consulted
for their rich content on the life stories of Ottoman calligraphers. There exist few
studies that attempt to situate these texts in their historical context and to understand
the socio-cultural milieu in which they were produced and consumed. In most of the
scholarship, what we see is a disregard for the written materials such as album
prefaces, treatises on calligraphy and biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. In his
study on the Timurid and Safavid album prefaces David J. Roxburgh directed his
criticism towards the approaches of art historians on these materials and he proposes
that “without attending to the literary aspects of the texts or other factors that may
have shaped them, historians of art mined them for biographical elements in the hope
of producing a historical construction.”52 Thus, an approach emerges which tend to
use the primary sources only for reconstructing the practitioners’ landscape,
deciphering the genealogy of the artists and identifying the main centers and schools
of writing. Rather than presenting a detailed textual analysis of the written materials,
specialists in Ottoman calligraphy use these sources in order to decipher the artistic
and aesthetic development and the schools of calligraphy in the Ottoman Empire.53
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005); Selim S. Kuru, “A Sixteenth-Century Scholar:
Deli Birader and his Dāfi’ü’l-ġumūm ve Rāfi’ü’l-humūm” (Unpublished PhD. diss., Harvard
University, 2000); Sooyong Kim, “Minding the Shop: Zati and the Making of Ottoman Poetry in the
First Half of the Sixteenth Century” (Unpublished PhD. diss., University of Chicago, 2005). Zeynep
Altok of Boğaziçi University is currently working on the sixteenth-century Ottoman biographical
dictionaries of poets as part of her PhD. dissertation entitled “Sixteenth-Century Biographical
Dictionaries of Poets and Ottoman Elite Identity.”
52 David J.Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-Century Iran
(Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2001), 5.
53 But it is needed to mention some studies which have obtained an alternative perspective on these
sources: Christine Woodhead in her article on the career of a sixteenth-century Ottoman katip uses
30
1.6 Biographical dictionaries of calligraphers: The genre and its antecedents
To put it in a simple framework, we might consider the biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers to have affinity with several different literary genres: hagiographies
(menakıbnames), biographical memoirs/dictionaries, universal histories, evails,
album prefaces and technical treatises.54 In order to understand the characteristics of
the genre, it is important to touch upon the general trends of the other genres with
which it was affiliated or to which it was indebted and the ways in which they
influenced its structure. Also, such an inquiry might provide some clues about the
possible sources of the authors of biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
The genre of menakıbname narrates the deeds, praiseworthy actions and
character of an individual who is thought to have distinguished himself with his
moral and pious actions.55 One of the obvious characteristics of the genre is the
praise for miraculous deeds of saintly figures (velis or pirs). One clear sign of the
effect of the hagiographical literature onto the genre of biographical dictionary of
Müstakimzâde Süleyman Sâdeddin's (d. 1788) Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn as a primary source. Also David J.
Roxburgh points to the biographies of calligraphers produced in the Ottoman lands for their value as
written materials in terms of art historical studies. See Christine Woodhead, “From Scribe to
Litterateur: The Career of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Katib,” Bulletin (British Society for Middle
Eastern Studies), Vol.9, No.1 (1982): 55-74.; Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image.
54 Altough Esra Akın-Kıvanç points this statement only for Mustafa ‘Âli’s Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân I
think it is true for all the examples of the genre. She counts four predeccesor of the genre. I included
the universal histories and evails which were remarked as one of the antecedents of the genre by
Roxburgh. See Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 87. Also see Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 122-
133.
55 For menakıb see Pellat, Ch. “Manāḳib.” EI2. Brill Online, 2015. For a general overview on the
genre of menakıbname see Tales of God's friends: Islamic hagiography in translation, ed. John
Renard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); John Renard, Friends of God : Islamic
images of piety, commitment, and servanthood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
31
calligraphers in terms of content can be seen in the title of Mustafa ‘Âli’s
biographical dictionary of calligraphers. Rather than a tezkire, he defined his work as
a menakıb. As Akın-Kıvanç remarks we might think the use of the word menakıb in
the title as “symbolic rather than literary.”56 Yet, as I will discuss in the next chapter,
throughout the text we see many narratives on the miraculous deeds of calligraphers
as if they were saints. Not only the calligraphers, but also the act of writing itself, the
written word, writing tools, in short, almost everything related to the written culture
were represented as retaining a sacred aura. It is true that the same way of
representation is also found in the written materials on calligraphy from the earlier
periods. Yet it would be misleading to accept this particular representation as an
unchanged and a general generic principle that we find in all the examples of the
genre. Such an approach would lead us to subscribe to the monolithic discourse on
calligraphy and to assume the existence of a one-dimensional representation of the
practitioner of calligraphy within the textual world throughout the centuries. Rather
than an all encompassing and timeless sacred framework surrounding the discourses
and representations on writing and its practitioners, what we need is a historical
analysis sensitive to social, cultural and political context. The other two Ottoman
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers that will be covered in this thesis also have
remarks on the sacredness of the practice of writing and the calligrapher. But they do
not represent this sacredness in an unchanged way. For this reason, the next chapter
will be devoted to the examination of discourses on writing, its practitioners and
origins of writing in three different Ottoman biographical dictionaries of
56 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 87.
32
calligraphers. Also, the apparent transformations within the discourse will be touched
upon where needed.
It is difficult and insufficient to focus merely on one biographical dictionary
without considering the earlier or contemporary ones. These texts mostly do not
allow easily for an analysis by their own since most of them were written as a
response or continuation to the earlier dictionaries. In a sense, a single example of
the genre might be understood only through examining its position within the
tradition of the genre, so to speak, through acquiring an intertextual approach.
The antecedents of the genre come from other types of biographical
dictionaries, which cover the life stories of poets or ruling elites and touch upon the
talents of the individuals on calligraphy. For example in some of the biographical
entries of Khwandamir’s (d. 1535-36) Dastur al-vuzara (completed in 1509-10),
which is a compendium covering the biographies of viziers from the Umayyad
through the Timurid dynasties, we find remarks on the subjects’ possession of good
script.57 Besides having the ability to read and write and talents in rhetoric, beautiful
writing appears as a field that provides the individual with praises of the author.58
Two earlier biographical dictionaries of poets from the late Timurid period,
Mir Ali Shir Navai’s (d. 1501) Majalis al-nafais (begun 1490-91) and Dawlatshah
Samarqandi’s (d. 1494-95) Tazkirat al-Shuara (completed in 1487), state the other
competencies of the poet in calligraphy, musical performance or drawing in order to
57 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 123.
58 Ibid., 123.
33
show the subject’s area of expertise.59 We find similar tendencies in the earlier
examples of Ottoman biographical dictionaries of poets. We find references on the
poets’ talents on calligraphy in Sehi’s (d. 1548) Heşt Bihişt (1538-1539)60, Ahdi
Ahmed Çelebi’s (d. 1593-94) Gülşen-i Şuara (1563)61 and Kınalızade Hasan
Çelebi’s (d. 1604) Tezkiretü’ş-Şuara (1586)62.
Later years of the fifteenth century witnessed the appearance of comments on
the calligraphers and artists in the Safavid and Timurid works of universal
histories.63 For example in Khvandamir’s universal histories, Khulasat al-akhbar fi
bayan ahval al-akhyar (1500) and Habib al-siyar (completed in 1524) we find
passing remarks on artists and calligraphers.64 According to Roxburgh the reference
to the individual skills in writing underlines the significance of good writing for
partaking in courtly culture and as an advantage for correspondence secretaries.65
Besides the appearance of references to skills in calligraphy in various types
of sources around the fifteenth century, what is striking about the comments of
authors like Dawlatshah and Khvandamir on calligraphy is their genealogical
59 Ibid., 124.
60 Heşt Behişt: Sehi Beg Tezkiresi, İnceleme, Tenkidli Metin, Dizin, ed. Günay Kut, (Cambridge:
Harvard University Printing Office, 1978).
61 Ahdi, Ahdi ve Gülşen-i şu'arâsı : inceleme-metin, (Ankara : Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı,
2005).
62 Tezkiretü’ş-Şuara: Kınalızade Hasan Çelebi, ed. İbrahim Kutluk, (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu
Basımevi, 1989).
63 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 124.
64 Ibid., 125.
65 Ibid., 125.
34
consciousness.66 Roxburgh discusses the way these writers compare and contrast the
style of a practitioner with that of earlier masters, the way they construct groupings
according to the specialization in talik or nestalik hands and the way they distinguish
between the canonical scripts, that is “Six Pens,” and the newly emerging scripts of
talik and nestalik.67
As a reason for the historical stance of these authors Roxburgh shows the
influence of another genre, that is, evail, whose primary concern is to count “the
origin of a technique or practice” and to specify an individual as the original
practitioner.68 From the earliest examples of the genre of evail, Thaalibi’s (961-1039)
Lataif al-Maarif (before 1038) has a section counting the firsts of the act of writing
and writing materials.69 Ibn al-Nadim (d.995?) also devoted the first chapter of his
Fihrist (late tenth century) to “a description of the languages of the Arabs and
foreign peoples, the characteristics of their ways of writing, their types of script and
forms of calligraphy.”70 As a reflection of the previous tradition of the genre of evail,
narratives on the emergence of writing and the first writers/scribes are found in the
prefaces of Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers too. In this respect, I
find an intertextual reading, which takes the evails and prefaces of biographical
66 Ibid., 125.
67 Ibid., 126.
68 Ibid., 127. For details on the genre of evail see Rosenthal, F.. "Awāʾil." EI2. Brill Online, 2015.
69 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 128. For the English translation of the work see The Book of
Curious and Entertaining Information: The Lata’if al-ma’arif of Tha’alibi, trans. C. E. Bosworth
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1968).
70 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 128. See Ibn al-Nadim, The Fihrist: A 10th Century Survey of
Islamic Culture, ed and trans. Bayard Dodge (New York and London: Columbia University Press,
1998), 7-40.
35
dictionaries of calligraphers into consideration significant in order to understand the
written sources of the Ottoman biographical dictionaries and their construction of the
history of writing.
Besides the above-mentioned genres one should also mention the technical
treatises on writing and writing tools like Sultan Ali Mashadi’s (d. 1520) Sirat alsutur
(Way of Lines of Writing, 1514), Mir Ali Haravi’s (d. 1550?) Midad al-khutut
(The Models of Scripts, 1519-20), Majnun Rafiqi’s Khatt va savad (Script and ink,
1533-34) and Adab al-mashq (The Good Manners of Practice, ca.1533-34), Mahmud
b. Muhammad’s Qavanin al-khutut (Canons of Scripts, 1561-62).71 Besides having
the content of a technical treatise these sources also reflect a genealogical
consciousness about calligraphy when they narrate the history of the Six Pens and
recount the biographies of canonical masters like Ibn Muqla, Ibn al-Bawwāb and
Yaqut al-Musta‘simi and the founders of talik and nestalik scripts.72
Thanks to a recent study on Hafız-zade’s Risale-i Hat, a technical treatise
written before Mustafa ‘Âlis's Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân has come to light.73 The
earliest copy of Risale-i Hat is from 1543 or 1544. Briefly, after the introductory
pages praising the practice of writing and the scribe, the text deals with the ways of
writing each letter, their combinations and how to write Allah in muhakkak, sülüs
and nesih scripts. Considering the fact the entire text is in verse and that versification
71 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 130-132. For other technical treatises by calligraphers see Carl W.
Ernst, “The Spirit of Islamic Calligraphy: Baba Shah Isfahani’s Adab al-Mashq,” Journal of the
American Oriental Society Vol. 112, No. 2 (Apr. – Jun., 1992), 281, note 19.
72 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 130-133.
73 Hafız-zade Risale-i Hat: Hatt’ın Şiiri: Tıpkıbasım ve Meşk Örnekleriyle Birlikte, ed. Sadettin Eğri
(İstanbul: Büyüyen Ay Yayınları, 2014).
36
often served mnemonic purposes, this text too might have been used for educational
purposes. Although generally Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân is counted as the first Ottoman
source that contains technical information on how to prepare ink, how to cut a pen,
and how to make various paper types, etc., Risale-i Hat contains this type of
information as well, and thus signifies the presence of an already existing literature.74
Additionally, the other Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers that will
be dealt in this thesis, Nefeszâde İbrahim’s Gülzâr-ı Savâb contains a chapter that is
organized as a technical treatise and devoted to descriptions on the preparation of
ink, paper and other writing materials.
Yet, even more than universal histories, examples of the evail genre and
technical treatises, the most obvious sign of an existing genealogical consciousness
about calligraphy is found in the prefaces to albums that were composed during the
late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.75 In Prefacing the Image, Roxburgh describes
these texts as “written to introduce bound collections of previously loose
calligraphies, paintings, and drawings…[they] contain lists of the names of
practitioners and brief biographical notes about them strung together according to
master-student affiliations.”76 The biographies are connected to each other through
chains of transmission, which are provided by indicating the name of the masters of
each calligrapher. Thus, the biographies following each other within a mechanism of
74 I will not discuss Risale-i Hat in more details for the purpose of limiting my study on one type of
source, that is the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
75 For originals and translations of some of the Safavid and one of the Ottoman album prefaces see
Wheeler M. Thackston, Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and
Painters (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2000).
76 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 1.
37
transmission construct the history of writing or calligraphy until the date the album
preface was written. These texts aimed to construct relations among generations of
practitioners, and this characteristic brings them closer to historywriting, more
precisely, to art historical writing. In Roxburgh’s words “The concept of linked
practitioners constituted a history of art.”77 The album prefaces as the antecedent of
the genre of biographical dictionary of calligraphers influenced the latter’s inner
structure and methods of organization as will be discussed in the next chapters.
1.7 Mustafa ‘Âli's Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân
The Ottoman bureaucrat, historian and poet Mustafa ‘Âli was born in 28 April 1541
in Gallipoli. He learnt logic and theology in the medrese during his youth. Besides
Turkish, he became proficient in Arabic and Persian too. After his skills in poetry
started to be renowned, he became a scribe at the court of prince Selim (later Selim
II) in Konya. Instead of an ilmiye career he preferred a career in the chancery. He
became the secretary of Lala Mustafa Paşa (d. 1580), who was mentor to Prince
Selim, and accompanied the latter to various cities of the empire. After 1569,
Mustafa ‘Âli presented his prose collection as a gift to the grand vizier Sokullu
Mehmed Paşa, and was rewarded with a tımar in Bosnia. Throughout his life he was
employed in the middle-rank offices in the provinces. In order to gain higher ranks
he wrote many works in various subjects during his lifetime. During his stay in
Baghdad, around the age of forty-four, he began to write Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân in
77 Ibid., 134.
38
1586 and completed it in İstanbul in 1587. In the age of fifty-eight, in 1600 he died
in Jeddah. 78
In a similar vein to the preceding and contemporary album prefaces, the first
Ottoman biographical dictionary of calligraphers we know so far, Mustafa ‘Âli’s
Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân (completed c. 1587) presents a history of calligraphy which is
driven by “the episteme of genealogy”.79 The text not only consists of biographies of
calligraphers but also of the painters, illuminators, masters of decoupage, limners,
binders, gold-sprinklers, rulers and repairers.80 As one of the most comprehensive
accounts of artists so far, the text presents the biographies of almost two hundred and
seventy artists. Mustafa ‘Âli does not limit himself to Rumi artists but also takes the
Timurid and Safavid artists into his account81 (See Appendix A, Table 1).
The text exhibits many features of the genres that I mentioned above as
possible sources of inspiration behind the genre of biographical dictionary of
calligraphers. In this regard, Mustafa ‘Âli shares with his predecessors a similar
discourse on calligraphy and its practitioners.82 The preface of the text consists of
78 For a detailed account of his life see Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the
Ottoman Empire: the Historian Mustafa Âli (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). Also
see Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 17-27.
79 I borrow the term from Roxburgh. See Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 136.
80 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 261-282.
81 Almost at the same period with the composition of Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân, at the end of the
sixteenth century, the Safavid author and historian Qādī Ahmad wrote a treatise that contain some
notices on the art of calligraphy, biographical information on the calligraphers and artists of his time
called Golestān-e Honar. For an English translation of the text see Calligraphers and Painters: A
Treatise by Qādī Ahmad, son of Mīr-Munshī, circa A. H. 1015/ A.D. 1606, trans. V. Minorsky
(Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1959).
82 For a discussion on the representation of the act of writing and the figure of calligrapher in the
Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers see the second chapter of this thesis.
39
eulogies to the pen and writing, discussion on the necessity of writing, holiness of the
Tablet (levh-i mahfuz) and the Pen, and Quranic verses, hadiths and sayings of
prominent figures like Imam Ali, Ca’fer as-Sâdık, Plato, Galen and Euclid about
writing and the pen.83 In the introduction Mustafa ‘Âli presents the history of
writing, which starts with the Prophet Idris (Enoch), and gives information on the
eighteen scripts used by Arabs, Persians, Turks, Daylamis and other nationalities.
The next two sections resemble a technical treatise on calligraphy and give
instructions on how to cut a pen according to the writing style, types of pen, ink and
paper and mention the importance of using the best quality materials for good
calligraphy.84
The following four chapters narrate the history of writing and are divided
according to the script type. The organization of the chapters is relied on masterpupil
lineages and the origin of the artists as Persian or Rumi.85 The first chapter is
on people who recorded the Quran in Kufic script. The eulogy to Imam Ali as the
most prominent writer of Kufic script follows a comparison of the Men of the Pen
with Men of Sword.86 The second chapter is devoted to the development of the Six
Styles by giving the biographies of masters like Ibn Muqla, Ibn al-Bawwāb and
Yaqut al-Musta‘simi and his students, called by Mustafa ‘Âli as the “Seven
83 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 159-169.
84 Ibid., 172-176.
85 Ibid., 37.
86 Ibid., 178-184.
40
Masters.”87 After he declares the existence of the “Seven Masters of Rum” who are
comparable to the Persians, he covers the biographies of these seven Rumi masters.88
The third chapter on the scribes of the nestalik script consists of only Persian
masters.89 The fourth chapter, which is devoted to the writers of çep, divani and
siyakat hands, is full of praises for Rumi calligraphers, who are famed for revising
and beautifying the Persian style.90 As I mentioned, the fifth chapter is on the artists
of the book.91
It is seen that the organization of the chapters relies on an understanding of
historical process. The existence of a genealogical consciousness on calligraphy
within the text is very much related to Mustafa ‘Âli’s knowledge on the works of his
predecessors, which is confirmed by his references to the written sources like the
biographical dictionaries of poets by Dawlatshah and Ali Shir Nevai. Yet, these are
the sources that we know only by his references. I think the text should have more
written sources to reach such a comprehensive history of calligraphy and
biographical dictionary of calligraphy. However, the lack of studies concerning the
written materials on calligraphy produced in the Ottoman lands and came from other
places into the Ottoman lands left this question unanswered for now.
87 Ibid., 185-206.
88 Ibid., 199.
89 Ibid., 206-257.
90 Ibid., 257-261.
91 Ibid., 261-282.
41
There are eighteen manuscript copies of Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân preserved in
different manuscript libraries.92 It seems that the text continued to be copied until the
late years of the nineteenth century. The relatively high number of copies signifies
that the text was quite popular. The issue of the circulation of the text calls to mind
the issue of the audience of the text. It is certain that subsequent authors of
biographical dictionaries were aware of the Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân and frequently
gave references to it. Mustafa ‘Âli gives a clue about his intention in writing this
when he criticizes the connoisseurs of his age for giving money to worthless works
of calligraphy. This suggests that he intended his text to be a guide for
connoisseurs.93 The fact that two copies were owned by the calligraphers Mehmed
Emin of Crete (d. 1765)94 and İbrâhim Tâhir95 indicates that it was indeed known to
and used by calligraphers.
Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân was first printed in Ottoman Turkish in 1926 by
İbnülemin Mahmud Kemal İnal (1870-1957).96 A second edition of the text by
Müjgan Cunbur appeared in 1982 and a Persian translation by Tawfiq H. Subhani
92 Akın-Kıvanç examines each manuscript and printed versions of the text in detail. See Ibid., 40-62.
93 Ibid., 95.
94 Ibid., 42. Akın-Kıvanç argues that this copy might be owned by Mustafa ‘Âli for himself. The copy
probably later owned by Mehmed Emin of Crete. The manuscript is located at İstanbul University
Library, Merkez Kütüphanesi, no. 9757.
95 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 52-53. The copyist of this version was Müstakimzâde
Süleyman Sâdeddin. The manuscript was part of a one hundred ninety-three-folio codex which
includes two other biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, Gülzâr-ı Savâb and Devhatü’l-Küttâb.
The manuscript is located at the Topkapı Palace Library, Emanet Hazinesi, no. 1232.
96 Menakıb-ı Hünerveran, ed. İbnü’l-Emin Mahmud Kemal (İstanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1926).
42
was published in 1991.97 More recently, Akın-Kıvanç has published a study
including an English translation, transliteration of the text and facsimile. Her
introduction to the edition deals with the structure, content and style of the text and
touches upon the features and history of the genre of biographical dictionary of
calligraphers.98
1.8 Nefeszâde İbrahim’s Gülzâr-ı Savâb
There is not enough information on the life of Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi. His first
calligraphy master was his father Amasyalı Mustafa Nefeszâde. Later on he received
his license (icazet) from Demircikulu Yûsuf Efendi (1514-1611).99 He died in 1650.
Gülzâr-ı Savâb, which was dedicated to Murad IV, comprises of one preface
and two chapters. The preface opens with praises to God and references to Quran,
hadiths and sayings of prominent figures on the merits of calligraphy. A discussion
on the person who actualized the act of writing for the first time in history and some
information on the emergence of calligraphy follow. The preface also gives a
narrative on writing down the revelations and the propagation of the Qur’an copies.
97 See Gelibolulu Mustafa ‘Ali, Hattatların ve Kitap Sanatçılarının Destanları: Menakıb-ı
Hünerveran, ed. Müjgan Cumbur (Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 1982) and Tawfiq H.
Subhānī, Manāqib-i hunarvarān (Tehran: Soroush Press, 1369/1991). Akın-Kıvanç gives information
on the Persian translation of the text by Subhānī in Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 31.
98 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 3-159.
99 For a brief story of his life see Muhittin Serin, “Nefeszâde İbrahim” in TDVİA vol. 32, (İstanbul:
Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 2006), 523. For his and his father’s biography see Müstakimzâde, Tuhfe-i
Hattâtîn, ed. Mustafa Koç (İstanbul: klasik Yayınları, 2014), 42-43 and 486-487.
43
The first chapter contains biographies of calligraphers until the reign of
Murad IV. This chapter is known as Kitab-ı Küttâb (The Book of Scribes) and begins
with the life stories of canon masters like Ibn Muqla, Ibn al-Bawwāb and Yaqut al-
Musta‘simi. The biographies of Ottoman calligraphers and then, the writers of talik
script are covered separately. Like Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân, Gülzâr-ı Savâb contains
the story of calligraphers from a large territory (See Appendix A, Table 2).
Biographies of calligraphers are ordered chronologically and according to the
pedagogical lineage of master-students.
The second chapter, known as Risale-i Midadiyye ve’l-Kırtasiyye (The
Treatise Regarding Ink and Paper), contains information on the technical details
about the preparation of paper, pen and ink before starting to write. This chapter
shows the possible audience of the text, that are the bureaucrats, copyists and
calligraphers who would probably need information on the types of inks and papers
and how to prepare them for writing.
There are twenty-four copies of the text located in various manuscript
libraries.100 The popularity of the text is inferred from the fact that it was copied
repeatedly from 1656 to 1850. While Kilisli Muallim Rifat transliterated the text in
1938, he also abridged the text considerably101 Fehime Demir transliterated the full
text in a master thesis. She based her transliteration on a manuscript located in Millet
Library, but also compared it with the manuscript copies located in the Topkapı
100 For information on the copies of the text see Nefeszâde İbrahim, Gülzar-ı Savab, 9-36.
101 Nefeszâde İbrahim, Gülzar-ı Savab, ed. Kilisli Muallim Rifat (İstanbul: Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi
Neşriyatından, 1938).
44
Palace Library and Süleymaniye Library. 102 The manuscript located in the Topkapı
Palace Library was copied in 1728-1729 by Müstakimzâde Süleymân Saadettin (d.
1788), who is the author of one of the most comprehensive biographical dictionary of
calligraphers Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn.103 The copy was part of the same codex that was
owned by the calligrapher İbrâhim Tâhir, which I mentioned before. As I mentioned,
the codex comprises of three biographical dictionaries of calligraphers in order,
namely, Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân, Gülzâr-ı Savâb and Devhatü’l-Küttâb.
The colophon does not state anything about the identity of the owner of the
codex, namely the calligrapher İbrâhim Tâhir. Yet, in Devhatü’l-Küttâb we find a
calligrapher named Tâhir İbrâhim Ağa, who might be the same person as the owner
of the codex. According to his biographical entry, he was the student of Râsim
Mehmed Efendi (1688-1756), who was one of the friends of Suyolcuzâde Mehmed
Necib. He was among the people who were newly trained in calligraphy during the
reign of Mahmud I.104 He wrote innumerable Qurans, Buhârî-i Şerîf and Şifâ-yı
Şerîf.105 At the same time, he was good at preparing paper and writing materials and
distinguishing various paper types.106 In this regard, he might use the biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers in order to have some information on the technical
aspects of calligraphy and on the history of the craft.
102 Millet Library, Ali Emîrî, Târih, no.808; Süleymaniye Library, Es’ad Efendi, no. 2547/1 and
Topkapı Palace Library, Emanet Hazinesi, no. 1232.
103 Müstakimzâde, Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn.
104 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 203.
105 Ibid., 203.
106 Ibid., 204.
45
1.9 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib’s Devhatü’l-Küttâb
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib was born in Eyüp around 1686. His father was Ömer
Efendi (1625-1686) the calligrapher. He was the grandson of the famous calligrapher
Suyolcuzâde Mustafa Efendi (d. 1686). He was taught calligraphy by Ağakapılı
İsmail Efendi (d. 1706). He was good at talik script. He was appointed as judge of
Rosetta, Egypt. He died in 1758 in İstanbul around the age of seventy-two.107 His
penname was Necîba and he compiled a divan.108 Three texts copied by Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib are located. He copied an Arabic work on Islamic jurisprudence by
Zeyneddin Ömer b. İbrâhim ibn Nuceym (d. 1563) entitled el-Eşbâh ve’n-nezâir in
1714.109 He made a copy of Minhâcü’s-sülûk ilâ edeb sohbeti’l-mülûk, which was an
Arabic book of ethics which had been translated by Mustafa ‘Âli and he dedicated it
to the grand vizier Damad İbrahim Paşa (d.1730).110 He also composed a miscellany
that contains the official correspondences exchanged during the Treaty of Pasarowitz
(1719).111 He wrote the inscriptions of the tombstone of his grandfather Suyolcuzâde
Mustafa Efendi. His poems were inscribed on the mausoleum of Ahmed Efendi in
Eyüp mosque, the fountains of Mehmed Ağa in Üsküdar, Defter Emini in Tophane,
107 For further information, see Muhittin Serin, “Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib” in Türkiye Diyanet
Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi v. 38, (İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 2010), 2.
108 Only one copy of his divan exists. See İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Atatürk Library, Belediye
Yazmaları, no. 000169.
109 Hacı Selim Ağa Library, Hacı Selim Ağa, no. 282.
110 Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Revan, no. 418.
111 Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Revan, no. 418.
46
Tersane Emini Hacı Ahmed Ağa in Kasımpaşa, Kırımî Mehmed Efendi in Otakçılar
and Kadızâde close to Eyüp Sultan Mosque.112
The compilation of Devhatü’l-Küttâb was probably around 1740 while the
author was almost fifty-four years old. The text comprises of a preface and three
chapters. The first chapter begins with praises to the calligrapher Ottoman sultans
until Mahmud I. Then, the preface gives information on the reasons of the author to
write this text. The second chapter touches upon the merits of writing and the Pen. A
discussion on the history and merits of writing follows. Compared to the earlier
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers Devhatü’l-Küttâb gives a detailed
inventory of its sources. There are many references to various books about the merits
of writing. The third chapter covers the biographies of almost five hundred
calligraphers who specialized in various script types from Ibn Muqla up to the
author’s time (See Appendix A, Table 3).
Each of the biographical entry in Devhatü’l-Küttâb, altough sometimes with a
shift in balance, basically covers the artist’s place of birth, family ties, lineage of
master-student, career path, script types in which he excelled, oeuvre, relations with
the other calligraphers, character and moral issues, patronage relations and the date
of death. In some cases, especially in the biographical entries recounting the story of
individuals with whom the author is familiar, further anecdotes are added. With
respect to the method of organization, Devhatü’l-Küttâb shows a major difference
from the former biographies of calligraphers. Unlike the former ones, in Devhatü’l-
Küttâb the order among the biographical entries is not structured according to the
112 See Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 23-30.
47
pedagogical lines of master and students, but according to the alphabetical order.
While in Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân and Gülzâr-ı Savâb, the pattern in which the entries
succeed one another reflects the master-student relations between the subjects of the
entries, in Devhatü’l-Küttâb the pattern of entries obeys the principle of alphabetical
order. The method of organization of the biographical dictionary renders it more
user-friendly and gives insights on the possible usage of the text like a catalogue of
artists for the connoisseurs.
Seven manuscripts of the text are found in various manuscript libraries.113
Three manuscripts were copied in the second half of the eighteenth century. Kilisli
Muallim Rifat transliterated a much abridged version of the text in 1942.114 Ayşe
Peyman Yaman transliterated the unabridged text in a master thesis. She based her
transliteration on a manuscript located in the Topkapı Palace Library, but also
compared it with the manuscript copy located in the Süleymaniye Library115. It
seems that the text had a limited audience compared to the earlier examples of the
genre. Since the author was a calligrapher close to Ahmed III and Mahmud I, it
might be speculated that the text was intended to circulate in palace circles.
To explain his intention to write a biographical dictionary of calligraphers the
author argues that his friend, İsmail Efendi the accountant of the agha of the Gate of
Felicity (Babüssaade ağası muhasibi) suggested to him to write a continuation (zeyl)
to Gülzâr-ı Savâb which aims at presenting the biographies of the calligraphers who
113 Peyman Yaman examines each manuscript copy. See Ibid., 13-21.
114 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, ed. Kilisli Muallim Rifat (İstanbul: Güzel Sanatlar
Akademisi Neşriyatından, 1942).
115 Topkapı Palace Library, Emanet Hazinesi, no. 1232, Süleymaniye Library, Fatih, no. 4359.
48
come after Nefeszâde İbrahim’s time.116 Devhatü’l-Küttâb was composed as a
biographical dictionary which also has the quality of being a continuation of Gülzâr-ı
Savâb. In this sense, Devhatü’l-Küttâb might be regarded as a text which
intentionally follows the tradition of compiling biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers.
The next Ottoman biographical dictionary of calligraphers, Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn,
was compiled around 1788, before the death of its author Müstakimzâde Süleymân
Saadettin (d. 1788). It comprises of biographies of 2066 individuals from a broader
geography and from various professional and socio-economic backgrounds. Similar
to Devhatü’l-Küttâb the biographical entries are ordered alphabetically, introduce
detailed narratives on the lifes of individuals, exhibit the calligraphy training of the
individuals step by step and emphasize their career lines. In this regard, the
biographical dictionary of Müstakimzâde Süleymân Saadettin shares a lot with
Devhatü’l-Küttâb in terms of the form and style of the biographical entries.
However, since a thorough analysis of both of these texts would exceed the scope of
a Masters thesis, I will focus primarily on the Devhatü’l-Küttâb and leave out the
biographical dictionary of Müstakimzâde Süleymân Saadettin from discussion. This
strategy can be partly justified by the fact that Devhatü’l-Küttâb, not only stands as a
model for Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn, but also has an important position in the history of
Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers written after the first half of the
eighteenth century. As I will discuss in the next chapter, a comparison of Devhatü’l-
Küttâb with the previous examples of the genre demonstrates the existence of
116 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 43-44.
49
stylistic and structural changes start with Devhatü’l-Küttâb. I argue that these
changes reflect the relative transformation and diversification of the position of skills
in calligraphy in the biographical entries and originate from the social, political and
cultural transformations in the Ottoman world in the second half of the seventeenth
and the first half of the eighteenth centuries.
50
CHAPTER 2
THE REPRESENTATION OF THE ACT OF WRITING AND THE FIGURE OF
CALLIGRAPHER
This chapter will try to present an alternative approach to calligraphy by undertaking
a textual analysis of three biographical dictionaries of calligraphers: Menâkıb-ı
Hünerverân, Gülzâr-ı Savâb and Devhatü’l-Küttâb. By examining the representation
of the act of writing and the calligrapher in these texts, I will try to document and
analyze certain transformations. To this end, I will analyze first the prefaces of the
texts, and then the overall structure and the content of the biographical entries. Upon
first examination, the prefaces of these texts present similar discourses on the act of
writing and calligraphers. Yet, when we delve into the main body of the texts,
namely the biographical entries, some changes in the discourses on the act of writing
become noticeable. For this reason, this chapter aims to analyze the various contexts
in which the act of writing is represented in the three texts.
We shall see that all of the three texts represent the act of writing and the
calligrapher within a worldly context to a certain degree. Yet, this worldly context
does not provide a total profanation of the act of writing and the calligrapher. The
texts also attribute saintly qualities to calligraphers and a sacred quality to the act of
writing. Thus, the worldly context of calligraphy mingles with the sacred qualities
attributed to the act of writing and calligrapher in the three texts. It is important to
51
note that I do not see a fixed, unchanged and undifferentiated worldly context
throughout the three texts. Instead, I aim to expose the transformation of the worldly
context itself from text to text. This transformation crystallizes especially in the third
and latest one of our three texts, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, which incorporates a wider
variety of individuals and touches upon a wider variety of contexts in which skills in
calligraphy were applied and, which provides much more detailed information about
calligraphy education compared to the previous two Ottoman biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers.
2.1 The prefaces: The origins and wonders of writing
Although written in different time periods, the prefaces of Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân,
Gülzâr-ı Savâb and Devhatü’l-Küttâb share a lot of common points with respect to
the discourses on calligraphy. The prefaces comprise of narratives on various issues
such as the invention of and the history of writing, the formation of the alphabet, the
first individuals who wrote, the necessity and elevated status of the Pen and the
Preserved Tablet, the merits and nobility of calligraphy. Also, references to Qur’anic
verses and hadiths related to calligraphy appear in all three prefaces. The prefaces
help us to understand how the authors of these texts and the broader circles of literati
of which they were part perceived the act of writing and with which contexts and
actors they associated it.
The prefaces display a twofold dimension in terms of the act of writing. The
hadiths and Qur’anic verses referred to in the prefaces emphasize the spiritual
52
significance of the invention of writing. This spiritual basis paves the way for the
formation of a sacred aura and discourse around the act of writing and the
calligrapher. On the other hand, the authors do not merely indicate the sacred origins
of writing but also characterize it as a phenomenon which has a history. In a way,
they reveal the concrete and corporeal contexts of the invention of writing and its
various functions in the social and political spheres.
In the previous chapter, I argued that an exclusive focus on the assumed
sacredness of calligraphy for Muslim literati has led scholars to underestimate and
overlook the other functions of calligraphy in the early modern world. Yet, the
criticism directed at this essentialist tendency should not lead us to overlook the
attribution of sacred and mystical qualities to the practice of calligraphy and the
calligrapher in the early modern Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
Franz Rosenthal argues that from an early period onward, with the expansion
of Arabic writing into the newly conquered lands and the switch to Arabic writing as
an act of break with past, Arabic writing became “a sacred symbol of writing,” and
“in Islam, sacredness became a characteristic element in writing.”117 In a similar
vein, Oleg Grabar explains the sacredness ascribed to writing with the nature of the
Qur’an as a text. Since “writing was the vehicle of God’s message, so God’s message
became a hallowed piece of writing.”118 Thus, the elevated status of writing in the
Qur’an created an understanding that holds “that every letter or word had in it a
117 Franz Rosenthal, Four Essays on Art and Literature in Islam ( Leiden: Brill, 1971), 54.
118 Grabar, The Mediation of the Ornament, 65.
53
particle of the divine, and thus that writing itself was holy.”119 As a result,
calligraphers were venerated as individuals who were writing with the sacred letters
of the alphabet in which the revelations had been recorded.120 The perspective on the
symbolic meaning of letters finds its reflection in Islamic cosmology and in the
beliefs of some Sufi orders like the Hurufis. Accordingly, the science of letters,
occultism through letters and attributions of physical and magical characteristics to
letters became popular practices.121
In the prefaces to the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, special place
is given to the discussions on the identity of the first scribe on Earth. While Mustafa
‘Âli mentions only the prophets Idris and Daniel as the first persons who executed
the act of writing for the first time, the other two authors give different names like
the prophets Adam, Ishmael, Noah and Hud as the first scribes according to various
sources.122 Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi and Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib construct a
narrative about the invention of writing and the emergence of the alphabet. Instead of
constructing a narrative that presents writing as a phenomenon that emerged in an
epiphanic or supra-temporal manner, the authors lay out a narrative that delineates a
historical process. Their narrative begins with the invention of the alphabet, and
continues with the biographies of the first scribes of the Qur’an and three canonical
119 Ibid., 65.
120 James, The Master Scribes: Qur’ans of the 10th to 14th centuries AD, 13.
121 Rosenthal, Four Essays on Art and Literature, 50.
122 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 176-177;Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 44-46;
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 48.
54
masters, namely Ibn Muqla, Ibn al-Bawwāb and Yaqut al-Musta‘simi and their
students.
The narrative in the prefaces of Gülzâr-ı Savâb and Devhatü’l-Küttâb begins
with three persons from the Tay clan in Bevlan, namely Murar, Eslem and Amir who
are represented as the first persons to write in the Arabic script. Murar was the one
who draw the shape of the letters; Eslem was the one who joined and disjoined the
letters; and Amir was the one who added the diacritical signs.123 According to the
narrative, the invention spread to Mecca and became known and used by the
people.124 Thus, instead of perceiving writing as an ahistorical phenomenon the
authors saw a development process in the history of writing. In this process writing
underwent some phases and a period of expansion.
The narrative continues with the writing down of the revelations and the
names of the scribes who were responsible in this process.125 In other words, after the
invention of writing and its spread, the writing of revelations appears as a significant
step in the history of writing. The names of the scribes of the revelations are
indicated and praised as practitioners of a sacred act. The hadiths and sayings cited in
the prefaces of the three texts serve to exhibit the merits of writing and to promote
writing as a sacred and precious act. A saying attributed to the prophet Muhammad
123 Alain George counts the introduction of diacritical signs which are used to distinguish the
phonemes of the same letter forms as the first innovation introduced to the Arabic script in the seventh
century. For a discussion on the radical transformation of Arabic script with the rise of Islam see
George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy, 27-31.
124 Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 45; Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb,
50-51.
125 Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 47-48; Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb,
54.
55
cited frequently goes thus: “He who writes the besmele beautifully will enter
Paradise.”126 Thus, writing is promoted as an act having spiritual benefits. Another
frequently mentioned saying concerning the promotion of writing is attributed to
Imam Ali: “Teach your children how to write, for writing is one of the [most] unique
of deeds.”127 In a similar vein, as a proof of the elevated status of writing in the
Qur’an, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib gives references to verses from the al-‘Alaq
and al-Qalam suras.128
The hadiths and sayings that promote the act of writing might be understood
from the perspective that David Cressy introduces in his book. Here he examines
how during the period between the Reformation and Industrial Revolution the
religious and secular man promoted writing by counting its various benefits.129
Although Cressy examines a very different context than the Ottoman world, his
study might give us some insights. If the ways religious and secular man promote
writing and literacy in the Tudor and Stuart England are considered, it is hard to
argue that the sacredness of writing is peculiar to the lands under the influence of
Islam. Clearly, similar discourses on writing were used in Tudor and Stuart England
in order to promote writing as a sacred activity and as an activity, besides reading,
which will provide the individuals with the salvation that Protestantism promised.
126 “Besmele-i şerîfe kitâbetini bir kimse tahsîn eylese Cennet’e girer.” Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi,
Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 48.
127 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 163-164.
128 Surat al-‘Alaq 96:3-96:5 “Reed! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One who taught by [means of]
the pen, who taught man what he did not know.” from The Qurʼan / a new translation by M.A.S.
Abdel Haleem (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 428. Surat of al-Qalam 68:1
“Nun. By the pen! By all they write!” from Ibid., 384.
129 David Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England
(Cambridge University Press, 1980).
56
According to Cressy, the ability to read was promoted as a vehicle for salvation
because with this ability the Christian subjects would understand the Bible. Besides
reading, Cressy interprets the reception of writing in this period. He argues that
writing was seen as a medium that enabled one “to interact with the holy word.”130
Writing was seen as one of the God-given abilities and it was emphasized that “it
should be used, like all other talents, to his glory and in his service.”131 So, it allows
the individual to get a higher “Christian experience.”132 Likewise, Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib identifies writing and learning to write as part of piety and belief in
his preface. Many instances that imply a relationship between writing and piety are
observable in the text. For example, in the preface the author states that “[God]
counts learning of calligraphy (ta’lîm-i hatt), for those loyal and faithful to Him, as
the greatest of the numerous blessings (ni’am) concerning the eternal religious
practices (ibâdet i’tiyâdı).”133 So, calligraphy is promoted as part of the religious
practices and a technique that improved the “Muslim experience.”
Cressy also emphasizes that social and political functions were attributed to
the act of writing. For example, in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries the educational writers argued that literacy and thus writing would diminish
the disobedience within society by providing a tool with which to teach people their
130 Ibid., 6.
131 Ibid., 6.
132 Ibid., 6.
133 “[T]a’lîm-i hattı zât-ı bî-çûnuna muzâf ve mensûb ve ubbâd-ı ibâdet i’tiyâdı hakkında olan ni’am-i
bî-adâdın a’zam ve ekreminden mahsûb eyledi.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 45.
57
duties to other people as well as to God.134 In a sense, literacy was seen as an
important component for being a member of civil society. David Brown, a
seventeenth-century master of calligraphy and ortography in London, promoted
writing on the grounds that its mastery aided the governance of states, maintenance
of laws, administration of justice and discipline and the teaching of piety, virtue and
benefits for youth.135
Similar to the promoters of writing and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England,
the authors of the Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers did not limit the
benefits of writing to the sacred sphere. Neither did they represent calligraphy
merely as the provider of spiritual benefits. Rather they pointed out that calligraphy
also provide worldly advantages and rewards. According to Mustafa ‘Âli calligraphy
is the conveyor of honor and “[T]he art of writing is a path toward nobility and fame,
which leads those who command it to glory and high station [.]”136 In addition to
calligraphy being a “rank-defining skill,” Mustafa ‘Âli alerts his readers to the fact
that a person who has mastered calligraphy can never be poor and needy.137 In a
similar vein, Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi refers to a saying of Imam Ali: “Beautiful
writing is riches for the poor, grace for the rich and refinement for the wise.”138 Thus,
134 Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order, 6.
135 David Brown wrote books on the art of writing like The introduction to the true understanding of
the whole arte of expedition in teaching write (1638) and The new invention intituled calligraphia (St.
Andrews, 1622). For David Brown’s works see Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order, 9.
136 Akın Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 204.
137 Ibid., 205.
138 “Güzel yazı fakir için mal, zengin için güzellik, âlim için kemâldir.” Translated into Turkish from
Arabic by Fehime Demir. Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 44.
58
the worldly reward of calligraphy as a moneymaking activity was also
acknowledged. As I will discuss in detail, especially in Devhatü’l-Küttâb the abilities
in calligraphy are presented as a vehicle for the individual to move a step further in
his career line. Hence, the economic, social and political benefits of having skills in
calligraphy were stressed in the biographical entries.
2.2 The spoken word vs. the written word: The superiority of writing
The prefaces and the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers do not say much on
how the authors saw the relationship between reading and writing, whether they were
seen as complementary or contrasting activities. Among the three authors only
Mustafa ‘Âli states that “writing is essential for reading” because for him the
recitation of scriptures in an exact and accurate way depends on writing. 139 So, he
sees writing as a practice complementary to reading and as essential for a true
understanding. Thus, he presents writing as an important component in the
construction of the meaning of a text. Other kinds of Ottoman sources like münşe’at
collections and manuals of calligraphy might provide further clues about the early
modern conceptions of the relationship between reading and writing. Such sources
might help us to understand what kind of significance was attributed to calligraphy
or to a particular script type. Was calligraphy perceived only as an element that
increased the value of a text or was it understood also as an element facilitating the
understanding of a text? For example, Adrian Gully argues that Ibn Halaf (d. 1063),
139 Akın Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 177.
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who wrote a work on epistolography in Arabic called Mawadd al-Bayan, remarks on
the rules and role of the script in a text thus: “[j]ust as a sweet expression enhances
the meaning and draws people’s souls to it, a fine piece of script – in this context
calligraphy – induces one to read what has been written.”140 This example from
Arabic literature suggests the possibility of a relationship perceived between the
beauty of the script and the meaning of a text also in Ottoman literature. For this
reason, more studies on different sources related to the rules of writing might provide
a better understanding of the early modern notions of reading and writing and their
relation with each other.
Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi and Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib introduce writing
as an important tool for the transmission of knowledge and compare the spoken word
with the written word. This comparison is illustrated in Gülzâr-ı Savâb with a story
about the prophet Solomon. According to the story the prophet asks someone what
speech (kelâm) is, and in return the person answers that speech is a non-permanent
thing. To the prophet’s second question concerning the nature and corporeality of
speech the man gives the answer that speech is embodied and recorded within
writing (kitâbet). Thus, the written word is presented as being superior to the spoken
word in terms of permanence.141 In this regard, writing is constantly represented as
something that ensures the continuation and permanence of knowledge. The point is
also made in a saying of Imam Ali’s, which is cited in both Gülzâr-ı Savâb and
140 Adrian Gully, The Culture of Letter Writing in Pre-Modern Islamic Society (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2008), 65.
141 “Hz. Süleymân nebî...bir ifrîte kelâmdan su’âl eyledi. Ol dahi: ‘Bir rîh-i gayr-i bakîdir’, dedi. Hz.
Süleymân nebî dahi etti ki: ‘Yâ anın kaydı ve bendi nedir?’ dedi. Cevâbında kitâbettir, dedi.”
Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 41-42.
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Devhatü’l-Küttâb: “Knowledge is untamed. Tame it with writing.”142 Thus, one of
the functions of writing presented by both authors is to provide the preservation and
transmission of knowledge. Writing is represented as superior to speaking with
respect to permanence.143
The other functions of writing counted by Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi are
preservation and enforcement of law, preventing disobedience, recording testimonies
and recording of the official correspondences.144 In a similar vein, Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib identifies the Pen and the Sword as tools for organizing and
conducting business and as providers of the continuation and endurance of the states
and professions. But he remarks the superiority of the Pen over the Sword.145
Thus, the authors do not only attribute sacredness towards the act of writing but also
remark its practical function. So, they also present a discourse that highlights the
social and political functions of writing.
For the concerns of this study, the attribution of political and social power to
the act of writing and the existence of multiple cultural attitudes towards writing in
these biographical dictionaries of calligraphers are significant, and prove the need to
develop an alternative perspective on the Ottoman culture of calligraphy. The authors
142 “İlim vahşîdir, yabânidir. İlmi yazı ile bağlayınız.” Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 43;
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 47.
143 For a discussion on the elevation of the pen and understanding of writing as “the preservation of
life, memory, speech, event” in the medieval Arabic literature see Adrian Gully, The Culture of Letter
Writing, pp. 50-72.
144 “Ve hıfz-ı hukûk ve men’-i temerrüd-i ukûk ve kitâbet-i şehâdât ve sebt-i sicillât bi’l-cümle
kitâbetle kāim ve sâbittir.” Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 42.
145 “[A]klâm-ı matiyye-i nüfûs-ı âliye-i kirâm ve umûr-ı külliyye ve cüz’iyyedeki nizâm ve memâlik
ve mesâlikte bulunan devâm ve kıyâm kalem ve seyf ile olduğu mâ-lâ-kelâmdır. Ammâ kalem efdal
ve ekrem, ve kitâbet bâ’is-i izz ü saâdet [.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 46-47.
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of the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers do not only refer to a limited type of
writing when they say kitâbet or hatt. Rather, as mentioned in the previous chapter,
they are referring to an array of practices used in the artistic, administrative, juridical
and social spheres. For this reason, it is necessary to develop a perspective that can
take into account the different forms and functions of calligraphy. Instead of
constricting the functions and notions of calligraphy into a sacred sphere in an
ahistorical way, a more inclusive and historical perspective would lead us to a better
understanding of the early modern Ottoman notions of calligraphy.
Nicholas Hudson’s study on the European attitudes towards writing between
1600 and 1830 focuses on the studies concerning writing and grammatology during
the Early Modern Era.146 He argues that the notions of writing underwent many
transformations since the Renaissance.147 He deals with the narratives on writing that
were written from the Renaissance onwards. He observes the existence of sacred
attributions to writing, which was accepted as a gift “bestowed on humanity at the
creation” in the earlier centuries.148 During the Renaissance period writing was seen
as a creation of God, the occult philosophy of writing flourished and symbolic and
mystic meanings were attributed to the letters with the influence of Cabbalistic
ideas.149 Yet, these tendencies were challenged with the emergence of Humanist
146 Nicholas Hudson, Writing and European Thought 1600-1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), xii.
147 Ibid., 2.
148 Ibid., 4.
149 Ibid., 9.
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ideas from the sixteenth century onwards. Hudson encapsulates his argument as
follows:
The transformation of attitudes to writing from the Renaissance to the
nineteenth century was indeed a process of demystification, the
gradual diminishment of the once hallowed position of the written
mark, and a growing perception of writing as an ingenious, socially
beneficial, but highly imperfect product of human endeavor.150
For now, it seems difficult to historicize the notions of writing and calligraphy in the
early modern Ottoman world like Hudson does. Such a task requires us to find new
sources related to writing. Yet, at least when the biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers are considered, it is hard to argue that there was no transformation in
the Ottoman notions of writing and calligraphy. On the contrary, we might talk about
a demystification process when we think that in Devhatü’l-Küttâb the practice of
calligraphy is presented in concrete social and political contexts more than in the
previous biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. Yet, this argument should not
lead us to construct a linear process of demystification. Hudson also does not argue
for such a linear transition, but rather points to the multiple dimensions of written
culture. It would be misleading to argue that the early modern Ottoman notions of
calligraphy underwent a process of total demystification toward the eighteenth
century. In fact, Devhatü’l-Küttâb also displays a multi-dimensional perspective on
calligraphy that emphasizes both the mystical significance of writing and the social
and political contexts in which writing was used. Additionally, we see many
examples of the usage of calligraphy for talismanic and therapeutic purposes on
various objects and materials before and after the period in which Devhatü’l-Küttâb
150 Ibid., 9.
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is written (see Appendix B, Figures 16 and 17). For this reason, the existing mystical
and practical attributions to calligraphy should be considered together while dealing
with different dimensions of the written culture.
2.3 The saintly calligraphers and the holy texts
The positioning of calligraphy within the political and social spheres in the
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers raises questions concerning the relation
between calligraphy and power. Were skills in calligraphy understood as a means to
have greater prestige in society and to reach higher positions in administrative
circles? This relationship can be understood by considering the representation of
calligraphers in the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. Such an examination
would make clear the way the skills in calligraphy provided people with social and
political power.
A transformation in the representation of the calligrapher in the Ottoman
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers is noticeable in Devhatü’l-Küttâb. Saintly
qualities are particularly prominent in the representation of the figure of the
calligrapher in the first two biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, whereas in
Devhatü’l-Küttâb the calligrapher is situated within various patronage relationships,
and is often represented as being engaged in career building and networking. It is
true that the previous two biographical dictionaries of calligraphers do not totally
disregard the worldly contexts in which the practice of calligraphy was located and
they also touch upon the patronage relations, salons and networking of calligraphers.
64
But the Devhatü’l-Küttâb stands apart from them with its tendency to portray a more
diversified worldly context by embracing various agents and by delineating in a more
detailed manner the use of calligraphy in different ways. To exhibit this peculiarity,
first I will show what kinds of qualities are attributed to calligraphers in the first two
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, namely Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân and
Gülzâr-ı Savâb. Then, I will focus on the Devhatü’l-Küttâb and illustrate how this
text presents a more diversified context for the practice of calligraphy.
Esra Akın-Kıvanç draws attention to the representation of calligraphers with
saintly qualities in Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân. In parallel to his identification of the
work as a menakıb, Mustafa ‘Âli mentions the miraculous deeds of many
calligraphers while narrating their life stories. As Akın-Kıvanç remarks, their skills
in calligraphy are accepted as God given and their writing implements are defined as
“magic producing.”151 Additionally, in contrast to Devhatü’l-Küttâb the training
process of the scribes is not covered in detail. Rather, short notices about the name of
the master of a calligrapher are given. Thus, a calligrapher’s skills in calligraphy are
attributed to his master. With the help of hadiths and sayings of prominent religious
figures the act of writing itself is represented as saintly. Since Akın-Kıvanç defines
saintly qualities that were attributed to the calligraphers and gives some examples
from the text, I will not give more details concerning the representation of the
calligrapher in Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân.152
151 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 121.
152 Ibid., 88.
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But in Gülzâr-ı Savâb there are some points to discuss on the representation
of the calligrapher, which has not been discussed before. It is interesting that,
contrary to what might be expected, Nefeszâde İbrahim does not give much detail
about the two canonical masters, namely Ibn Muqla and Ibn al-Bawwāb.153 Yet, he
mentions that the third great master, Yaqut al-Musta‘simi, who was believed to be
from Amasya, had a handwriting that was magical and that he exhibited some
miraculous deeds.154 It is reported that Yaqut al-Musta‘simi lived for one hundred
eighty years and copied one thousand Qur’ans and many other books.155 According
to the story, Abdülkādir Geylânî praised and revered him because he thought that the
calligrapher had the secrets of God in his hands.156
Attributing mystical qualities to and praising the calligrapher who copies
sacred texts is not something unique to Ottoman writing culture. A similar kind of
reverence and praise was shown to the copyists of the Bible. In her study on the late
antique Christian thought on the holiness of the scriptures and their copyists, Claudia
Rapp argues “The copying of scripture was not just a mechanical activity but carried
enormous spiritual significance for the copyist.”157 Accordingly, what we come
across in the Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers is not a
representation of the act of writing as a mechanical activity. Rather, to copy the
153 Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 50.
154 Ibid., 52-53.
155 Ibid., 53.
156 Ibid., 53.
157 Claudia Rapp, “Holy Texts, Holy Men, and Holy Scribes: Aspects of Scriptural Holiness in Late
Antiquity” in The Early Christian Book, ed. W. Klingshirn, L. Safran (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University Press, 2006) 205.
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scriptures accredits the calligrapher with holiness. In this regard, writing the sacred
texts beautifully is represented as an extension of religious piety. Thus, besides
reading the scripture, to copy it was understood as an act enriching the piety too. The
referred verses from the Qur’an on the merits of beautiful writing and hadiths
concerning the merits of writing scriptures or besmele are supporting this idea.
Saintly qualities are attributed to one of the canonical masters of Ottoman
calligraphy, namely Şeyh Hamdullah, who was also a şeyh of the Sühreverdiyye
order like his father Mustafa Dede. His life story is narrated in the hagiographical
mode. Although the names of his masters are recorded and his training process is
described, his inborn talent and success in calligraphy are stressed through the
narration of his miraculous birth. According to the narrative, when Mustafa Dede
seeks a woman to marry in Amasya, a saint directs him to his future wife, and
foretells that they will have a son who will have knowledge on many topics and who
will be very famous in every city.158 In the end, his son Şeyh Hamdullah indeed
becomes famous for his skills in calligraphy. Thus, by stressing the inborn talents
and narrating the miraculous deeds of the calligrapher, the author depicts him as a
saintly figure.
Annemarie Schimmel points out that Ottoman calligraphers were often
members of Sufi orders.159 This might indeed be a factor behind the saintly
representation of some calligraphers. Schimmel also remarks the similarity of
master-student relationship in calligraphy to the “[c]lose, loving relationship between
158 Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 59.
159 Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, 47.
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a Sufi pir and his muri[d].”160 Additionally, family ties between the calligraphers are
stated in the texts as signs of a familial talent in calligraphy. For example, in Gülzâr-ı
Savâb there exists no information on the masters and education process of the
relatives of Şeyh Hamdullah, namely his brothers Cemâlüddîn el-Amâsî and
Celâlzâde Muhyiddîn el-Amâsî and Şeyh Hamdullah’s son Mustafa Dede (1495-
1538).161 Rather, to signify their talents in calligraphy the author only indicates that
they were relatives of Şeyh Hamdullah.
Gülzâr-ı Savâb does not only represent Şeyh Hamdullah as a saintly
calligrapher. Abdullah Kırımî (d. 1590) and Ahmed Karahisârî (1470?-1556) are also
represented as calligraphers with saintly qualities. The narratives of their lives
consist of some stories, which serve to demonstrate their piety.162 The common point
of these three calligraphers is that they were all founders or improvers of new styles
of calligraphy. As the inventors of new styles of calligraphy, they are venerated by
the authors and saintly qualities are attributed to them. Not only the Ottomans but
also Persian script inventors like Mîr Ali (d.1446), who invented the talik script
according to the tradition, are represented as saintly figures163 (see Appendix B,
Figure 18). The close association between the reputation of these calligraphers as
script inventors and their veneration as saintly figures tells us a lot about the merits
of calligraphy in the minds of early modern authors. Also, it might be regarded as an
160 Ibid., 46.
161 Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 66-67.
162 Ibid., 70-73.
163 Ibid., 78-79.
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early modern mechanism for the formation of a “school” of calligraphy by way of
revering the masters who invented new scripts and whose styles highly influenced
the formation of dynastic styles.
Supernatural qualities are attributed to the texts in relation to the holiness of
the calligrapher.164 The part of Gülzâr-ı Savâb on the history of writing touches upon
the names and holiness of the calligraphers of the Qur’anic revelations. The third
caliph Osman’s act of copying the Quran attracted special attention from the author.
The author mentions that he saw one of the Qur’ans copied by Osman in a castle in
Humus. According to the story, Osman had copied a Qur’an and given it to the
community of Humus after they had complained about drought. He advised the
community to take the Qur’an out from the castle during times of drought and to beg
for rain from God. The author argues that the community of Humus still listens to the
advice of Osman and thereby it rains. 165 The narrative does not talk about the
miraculous events surrounding an ordinary copy of the Qur’an. The holiness and
miraculous qualities of this specific copy of Qur’an originated from the holiness of
the calligrapher who copied it, namely the caliph Osman. It might be argued that the
narrative is illustrating some of the early modern notions about the materiality and
functions of the text. Texts were not understood only as objects to be read; they were
used for their talismanic and therapeutic functions, too.
164 Rapp, “Holy Texts, Holy Men,” 196. Rapp identifies her study as “[a]n investigation of the
supernatural connotations that are tied to the materiality of the text, arising from the holiness of the
text or the holiness of the scribe or from a combination of both.” Her statement inspired me to discuss
a similar kind of phenomenon in the Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
165 “Bu abd-i fakîr birin dahi Humus’da kal’ada ziyâret eyledim. Humus ahâlîsi [...] hâlen kerâmat-ı
zâhire ve vilâyât-ı bâhirelerindendir ki her kaçan ol Mushaf-ı Şerîf’i sûr-i kal’adan taşra çıkarsalar
fi’l-hâl matâr-ı ‘azîm nüzûl eder.” Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 48-49.
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2.4 The calligrapher near the sultan: Scripts and the question of imperial identity
In Gülzâr-ı Savâb calligraphy is represented as the tool of individual not only to gain
sanctity but also social power and status. To have a better understanding of the
representation of calligraphy in this way, the relationship between the calligrapher
and the power holders should be examined. Also, the degree of significance given to
the script type by the power holders should be addressed. As an example illustrating
the relationship between calligraphy and power, the scenes in which the calligraphers
are depicted next to the sultan seems significant to consider. In this regard, the
biography of Şeyh Hamdullah by Nefeszâde İbrahim is illustrative because it
portrays a close relationship between the calligrapher and the sultan of the time
Bayezıd II. According to Nefeszâde İbrahim, Şeyh Hamdullah built an intimate
relationship with the sultan thanks to his skills in calligraphy. He taught calligraphy
to the sultan and his sons in Amasya. When Beyazıd II came to Istanbul as the new
sultan and saw Şeyh Hamdullah’s calligraphy example again by chance, he
recognized Şeyh Hamdullah’s style and immediately commanded his men to find the
calligrapher who wrote it.166 After the calligrapher was found, the sultan made him
palace scribe (sarây kâtibi) and an instructor of calligraphy in the palace. It is
striking that, according to the narrative Bayezıd II demanded from him to find a
better style than Yaqut al-Musta‘simi’s style. The sultan gave Şeyh Hamdullah a
piece of Qur’an which was written by Yaqut al-Musta‘simi and kept in the Imperial
166 Ibid., 59.
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Treasury and suggested him to invent a better style than Yaqut al-Musta‘simi. 167
Hence, Şeyh Hamdullah retreated for a while to find a new style. The process of
creation of a new style is described in the text as the result of withdrawal from
worldly affairs, that is an act which once again carries saintly connotations and
reinforces the saintly figuration of the calligrapher in the text. Ultimately, Şeyh
Hamdullah improves the style of Yaqut al-Musta‘simi. At this point the author
inserts into the narrative a poem that compares and contrasts the style of the two
calligraphers, namely Yaqut al-Musta‘simi and Şeyh Hamdullah, and praise the
latter: “Ever since the calligraphy of Hamdi, son of Şeyh, appeared/ The writings of
of Yâkūt have surely vanished from the world.”168 The narrative and poem
emphasize that Şeyh Hamdullah’s success in ending the domination of Yaqut al-
Musta‘simi’s style in calligraphy in the lands of Rum provided him with a position
close to the sultan. Julian Raby and Zeren Tanındı point to the role of the sultan in
the same account and argue that “the traditional account of his [Beyazıd II]
relationship with [Şeyh] Hamdullah suggests that he also had a more active role,
establishing the standards, and the artistic direction, that [Şeyh] Hamdullah should
pursue.”169 They liken the role of the sultan to an enlightened ruler and the role of the
calligrapher to an artistic genius in this narrative of encounter.170
167 “Sultân Bâyezîd Hân [...] hazîne-i âmiresinde mahfûz olan Yâkūt’un meşhûr ve ma’rûf olan kara
varaklarından yedi varak verip buyurdular ki bu tarz-ı Yâkūtî’den bihter ve pîşter bir tarz-ı has dahi
ihtira’ olunsa [...] ol tarz-ı has gâyet hoş-âyende ve dil-cûyende olurdu.” Ibid., 60.
168 “Şeyh oğlu Hamdi hattı tâ kim zuhûr buldu / Âlemde bu muhakkak nesh oldu hatt-ı Yâkūt.” Ibid.,
60-61. The same poem exists in Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân too. I used the translation of Akın-Kıvanç.
Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds, 202.
169 Julian Raby and Zeren Tanındı, Turkish Bookbinding in the 15th Century: The Foundation of an
Ottoman Court Style, ed. Tim Stanley ( London: Azimuth Editions, 1993), 98.
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Şeyh Hamdullah is also depicted as being praised by the sultan before the
ulema. In response to the religious scholars’ complaints about the close relationship
between the sultan and the calligrapher, the sultan honors Şeyh Hamdullah by
showing a Qur’an copied by him and asks the religious scholars if any other former
states had a scribe and a calligrapher like him. The religious scholars confirm the
sultan and accept Şeyh Hamdullah’s success and do not object when the sultan puts
the Qur’an copied by him above the books written by them. 171 Here, the author puts
the calligrapher above the religious scholars and thus, provide him with more social
power.
The above-mentioned portrayal of the sultan and the calligrapher can indeed
be interpreted, as Raby and Tanındı did, as an encounter between an enlightened
ruler and an artistic genius. But a further dimension must also be added to this
interpretation, one that questions the role of script for the imperial identity.
According to the frequently referred story, the renovation and standardization of Six
Pens by Şeyh Hamdullah helped to end the dominance of Yaqut al-Musta‘simi’s
style and set the foundation for the creation of a distinctive style of Ottoman
calligraphy. Yet, I think, the active role played by the sultan in the traditional
narrative on the renovation and standardization of Six Pens by Şeyh Hamdullah
should not be interpreted merely as reflective of patronage relations.
170 Ibid., 96.
171 “Nev’an bunların hatırlarının inkisârını velâyetle fehm edip Şeyh merhûmun dest-i hattı olan
Kelâm-ı Kadîm’i getirtip ol meclisde hâzır olan ulemâ-i zevi’l-ihtirâmın herbirine seyir ve ziyâret
ettirip kemâl-i istihsândan sonra buyurdu ki böyle bir hattât-ı muhtereme ve kâtib-i hoş-rakâme
mülûk-ı mâziyyeden kimse mâlik olmamıştır diye su’âl eyledikte Hz. Bâyezîd Hân’ı kemâl-i tasdîk ile
tasdîk eylediler.” Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 62.
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The degree of veneration of the calligrapher by the sultan raises questions on
the possibility to regard the script type as one of the components of the early modern
Ottoman imperial identity. Because the standardization that Şeyh Hamdullah brought
about to Six Pens determined the future of a variety of scripts in the Ottoman lands.
He standardized especially sülüs and nesih scripts and his style of nesih became the
standard hand used by the Ottomans in copying Qur’ans.172 The time period in which
Şeyh Hamdullah made his renovation in the Six Pens, 1400s, was not only special in
the history of Ottoman calligraphy. James observes that “[t]he Qur’ans and other
manuscripts produced in the eastern Islamic world after 1400 reflect the relative
importance of the regions in which they were made.”173 Hence, regional styles
among a vast geography started to emerge. A standardization and general type of
Ottoman Qur’an production was established especially from the seventeenth century
onwards.174
If Şeyh Hamdullah was the calligrapher who initiated the emergence of an
Ottoman style in calligraphy and an Ottoman style in Qur’an copying, it is striking
that the traditional narrative gives an active role to the sultan of the time Bayazıd II
in the process of standardization of calligraphy. Can we interpret this narrative as a
sign of the inclination of the Ottoman power holders to create a distinctively
172 David James, After Timur: Qur’ans of the 15th and 16th centuries, ed. Julian Raby (New York:
Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1992), 69.
173 Ibid., 10. Similarly, Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī speaks of the emergence of regional styles after 1400s
in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Anatolia, Transoxiana and Central Asia. See Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī,
“Calligraphy VII. Calligraphy Outside Persia,” Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 7, pp. 704-718;
available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/calligraphy-2 (accessed on 5 August 2015).
174 Tim Stanley, “Istanbul and its Scribal Diaspora. The Calligraphers of Müstakim-zade.” in The
Decorated Word: Qur’ans of the 17th to 19th centuries, ed. Manijeh Bayani et al. (New York: Nour
Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1999), 62.
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Ottoman calligraphy style and a distinctive style for the Qur’ans produced in the
Ottoman lands?175 For now, it is difficult to answer such a question comprehensively.
Yet, it is remarkable that the calligraphers that shaped the history of calligraphy in
the Ottoman lands by revising older forms and creating new ones were presented in a
close relationship with power holders in the biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers. Not only Şeyh Hamdullah, but also calligraphers such as Ahmed
Karahisarî and Hafız Osman were portrayed as being close to the power holders. In
the narratives concerning the above-mentioned calligraphers, it is observable that the
sultans show their preference for their calligraphy styles by commissioning them
calligraphy works, studying calligraphy with them (not only sultans but also
şehzades are represented as having been educated by these masters) and even helping
them while they are writing by kneeling down and holding the inkpot of the
calligraphy master. The sultan, a figure that represents the state, venerates a person
who has knowledge of calligraphy. These scenes do not only indicate the artistic
value of calligraphy, but also show it as a social practice that is definitively related
with power. The question about calligraphy’s relationship with imperial identity
remains unanswered in the absence of historical and analytical studies related to the
written sources of calligraphy, the calligraphy works produced in the Ottoman lands
and their dissemination over time.
175 There is a chapter titled as “Dynastic Styles in the Age of Empires” in Sheila S. Blair’s book. Yet,
the chapter does not discuss the process of and the reasons for the emergence of dynastic styles under
the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals. See Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, 417-589.
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2.5 The geography of script
Another remarkable point in Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân and Gülzâr-ı Savâb is their way
of associating the divani and talik script types with a particular territory. The two
script types are subjected to a geographical division among the Ottomans and
Persianate lands. The chapters of Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân is organized according to
the scripts such as copyists of Qur’an in the Kufic script, experts in the Six Styles,
scribes of the nesih and talik scripts, writers of çep and divani. The chapter on talik
writers comprises of Persian masters. And the chapter on divani begins as follows:
“Now, the calligraphers of diwani script in the land of Rum modified the Persian
style in its entirety and transformed it into an admirable style with easy-to-read forms
and characters.”176 The practitioners and modifiers of divani script come from the
Ottoman bureaucracy. Mustafa ‘Âli does not explicitly admit the presence of a
division, but I think he implicitly divides the script types with a territorial
perspective. It might be argued that the talik script is reserved for the Persianate or
Safavid world, while the divani script is reserved for the Rumi or Ottoman world. In
a similar vein, in Gülzâr-ı Savâb the talik writers are treated under a separate title.
All of them except for Murad IV came from the broader Iranian world and were
active in the Timurid and Safavid lands.177 Thus, it might be argued that the authors
insert a territorial dimension into the history of calligraphy.
176 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 260.
177 Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 76-83. Ali Alparslan states that Murad IV’s tutor was
Derviş Abdi (d. 1647) who came to Istanbul from Ispahan and learnt calligraphy there from İmâd who
was famous as the founder of nestalik script. Alparslan also underlines that the nestalik script and the
style of İmâd spread to the Ottoman lands in the seventeenth century with the arrival of Derviş Abdi
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In the history of European calligraphy, Johanna Drucker observes a similar
phenomenon. She argues that the dissemination of various scripts and calligraphy
styles in Europe paved the way for the script type to play a role in “the demarcation
of domains of power.”178 In this regard, the territorial differentiation or the distinct
geography of calligraphy, which is also reflected on the written sources of Ottoman
calligraphy, might show us a relation between the calligraphy styles and imperial
identity during the early modern state building processes in both cultural zones. The
fact that the talik, nestalik and divani scripts were standardized and started to be used
in state documents in this period might be seen as another sign of such a relationship
between the script type and imperial identity (see Appendix B, Figures 19-22). In
other words, early modern Ottoman powerholders might have perceived the script
type as a means of differentiation from other dynasties. Yet, the relation between the
script types and territories should not be understood as a fixed one. This relation was
also transformed over time. For example, in contrast to the previous examples of the
genre, Devhatü’l-Küttâb does not exhibit such a distinct territorialization of script,
but rather portrays a more flexible and transitionary relation between the territory
and script type. The talik and nestalik scripts which were associated with the Iranian
world in the previous two biographical dictionaries of calligraphers are portrayed as
to Istanbul. See Alparslan, Osmanlı Hat Sanatı Tarihi, 161-162. In parallel to that Nefeszâde İbrahim
Efendi remarks that “Mir ‘İmâd merhumun hutût-ı mergûbesi bunların zamanlarında Rûm’a gelip
münteşîr olmamıştı.” Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 82.
178 Johanna Drucker, The Alphabetic Labyrinth: The Letters in History and Imagination (London:
thames and Hudson, 1995), 103. She gives the example of Carolingian miniscule. For another study
that reads the script type as part of a larger imperial project and a tool in the empire building process
of Philip II of Spain and constructs a relationship between calligraphy, codification and
standardization of script and state power see Jessica Berenbeim, “ Script after print: Juand de Yciar
and the art of writing,” Word and Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 26:3 (2010): 231-243.
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popular script types in the Ottoman world in Devhatü’l-Küttâb. In a similar vein, the
skills in talik and nestalik scripts are portrayed as being dominated by the Persian
calligraphers in the previous two biographical dictionaries. Yet, Devhatü’l-Küttâb
represents talik and nestalik scripts within the domain of the expertise of the
Ottoman calligraphers.
The territorial dimension of script and its crystallization within the artistic
rivalry among the Ottomans and Safavids might be understood from some of the
narratives concerning the calligraphers. The way Mustafa ‘Âli situates Ottoman
calligraphy in an artistic rivalry among other calligraphy traditions is illustrative.
Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân covers Timurid, Safavid and Rumi artists, but the venerated
calligraphy style belongs to the Rumis. First, he covers the biographies of “Seven
Masters” who were venerated in the history of calligraphy as the students of Yaqut
al-Musta‘simi and the transmitters of the six styles in different geographies. Later on,
Mustafa ‘Âli discusses the calligraphers of Rum by beginning his account thus: “In
addition to these, the calligraphers of Rum also have their own ‘Seven Masters’.”179
The Rumi Seven Masters that he discussed are Şeyh Hamdullah and his six students
who were active in the Ottoman lands. So, Mustafa ‘Âli tries to construct a tradition
for the Rumis and tries to insert this group into the history of calligraphy next to the
Persian masters. He creates an analogue Ottoman or Rumi tradition of calligraphy
besides the Persian one. As it is seen in the Safavid album prefaces, the tradition that
promotes the Six Pens as a style passing from Yaqut al-Musta‘simi to his students
179 Akın-Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 199.
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was established by the sixteenth century.180 Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân demonstrates that
the end of the sixteenth century witnessed the establishment of a tradition of
Ottoman calligraphy that finds its origins in the Rumi Seven Masters comprising of
Şeyh Hamdullah and his students. Thus, in his biographical dictionary Mustafa ‘Âli
provides the Ottoman calligraphy practice with a basis to rely on which is
determined by a territorial dimension. For this reason, I raise a question about the
role played by script type as a component of imperial identity in the eyes of the
Ottoman authors of biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
Of course, in order to discuss the script type as a component of imperial
identity more comprehensively, it would necessary to also investigate other types of
sources such as epistolary collections or dispatches between the different Muslimruled
empires. For instance, it would be important to examine in what ways the
Ottomans prepared a document, which elements of a document was attended to and
what kind of a role calligraphy style and script type played within this process. For
example in Raşid’s history we find a discussion about the document that would be
sent to the Safavid shah in 1721, which illustrate the significance given to the script
of a state document. Raşid says that three calligraphers were commissioned to write
the document in three different calligraphy styles. The Qur’anic verses in celi style
were written by Firdevsi Hüseyin Efendi, Persian couplets in tevki style were written
by Bursalı Mehmed Efendi and the rest of the text in nestalik style was written by
180 Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, 286, note 4.
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Veliyüddin Efendi.181 In light of further evidence, the role of calligraphy in the
Ottoman documents might be interpreted in a more clear way. Additionally, the
political role of calligraphy style and script type would be manifested as opposed to
their portrayal merely in an artistic sphere, which is perceived by the current
scholarship on the Ottoman calligraphy in isolation from politics.
2.6 Calligraphy within artistic rivalry
Two other narratives illustrating the positioning of calligraphy as an issue of artistic
rivalry between empires comes to the fore in both Gülzâr-ı Savâb and Devhatü’l-
Küttâb. The issue of artistic rivalry is brought forward with the biographies of
Safavid court calligraphers Şâh Mahmûd Nişâburî (d. 1564) and İmâd (d.1615).182
The setting of Şâh Mahmûd Nişâburî’s (see Appendix B, Figure 23) story is the
Battle of Chaldiran (1514). During the war Shah Ismail hides the calligrapher and the
painter Bihzad in a cave, because, according to the story, Shah fears that these artists
might escape from his land to the side of Ottomans, due to their Sunni identiy.183 The
181 Raşid, Tarih-i Raşid vol.IV (İstanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1865), 426, quoted in Philippe Bora
Keskiner, “Sultan Ahmed III (r.1703-1730) as a Calligrapher and Patron of Calligraphy,”
(Unpublished PhD. Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2012).
182 For the biography of Şâh Mahmûd Nişâburî see Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 82 and
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 192. For the biography of İmâd see Nefeszâde
İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 80-81 and Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 232-233.
The next chapter of this thesis will discuss the influence of İmâd’s style in the Ottoman lands.
183 “Sâhipkırân [...] Selim Hân [...] mesfûr Şâh İsmâil ile Çaldırân-nâm sahrada musâf eyledikleri
hînde yed-i müeyyed-i pâdişâh-ı ‘âlem-penâha giriftâr olmasınlar diye, Şâh Mahmûd’u ve Behzad-ı
bihbûd’u bir gâr içine nihân eylemişti. Ol zamânda münhezim olup geldi cümleden evvel mezbûrları
tecessüs kılmıştı. Zîrâ bunlar Sünnîler idi. Bunların firârlarından [dahi] emîn değildi.” Nefeszâde
İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 82.
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second narrative is about the famous calligrapher İmâd (see Appendix B, Figure 24)
whose style in nestalik influenced many Ottoman calligraphers from the seventeenth
century onwards. According to the narrative shared by both Gülzâr-ı Savâb and
Devhatü’l-Küttâb
[b]ecause İmâd was one of the great sheikhs of the Nakşibendiyye path,
of Hasanid genealogy (Hasaniyyü’n-neseb), from the Hanefi madhhab
(Hanefiyyü’l-mezheb), a pilgrim (hâccü’l-Haremeyn)…a Sunni and
because he was not willing to accept, like the Rafizis, the smell coming
from candlewick when the candles are blown out, the merciless,Shah
Abbas, the deputy of Satan, was always against him .184
Accordingly, Shah Abbas ordered two butcher apprentices (iki şakird-i kassab) to
kill the calligrapher. The apprentices went to the house of İmâd in Ispahan and called
out to him, saying “A letter has arrived to you from the Sunnis of the lands of Rum.”
Thereabouts, they killed İmâd with a knife. When news of his death arrived to India,
the Mughal emperor Akbar (d.1605) cried a lot and said, “If they had not killed him,
I would have given him as much gold and jewelry as he weighted.”185 In both
narratives on Şâh Mahmûd Nişâburî and İmâd the calligraphers are situated within an
inter-imperial sphere. The calligraphers became a tool for the emperors in order to
prove their worth as patrons of calligraphy. Shah Abbas was portrayed as a patron
184 “Ve merkūm tarîk-i hâcegân-ı Nakşibendiyye kibârından Hasaniyyü’n-neseb ve Hanefiyyü’lmezheb
[ve] haccü’l-Haremeyn, sünni senevî, dîn-i İslâm’da kavî olup, râyiha-i fetîl-i püfkerde-i
şem’-i Rafzî-meşâmm kabûlüne karîn eylemediği ecilden câ-nişîn-i vesvâs Şâh Abbâs-ı bî-insâf-i
mânende-i hamâs, dâimâ taraf-ı hilâfında olmakla [.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-
Küttâb, 232-233.
185 “İki şâkird-i kassâb-ı hūn-rîz-i mel’anet-engîzi bir tarikle [...] İsfahan’da sâkin oldukları
sa’âdethânelerinden bahâne-âmîz kelimât [...] ile taşra çıkarıp ‘Sana diyâr-ı Rûm sünnîlerinden
mektûb geldi’ diye hançer[i] [...] bedîd edip [...] zât-ı âlî-cenâbı şehîd eyledikleri meşhûr-i deverândır
[...] Şâh Hind İbn-i Celâleddin istimâ’ eyledikte [...] gûya oldular ki ‘Eğer İmâd-ı nâ-şâdı katl ü şehîd
eylemeyip tarafıma irsâl eylemiş olalar idi, bir terâzû kefesine altun ve cevâhir ve keff-i diğerine
İmâd-ı nâdirü’l-mu’âsırı sencîde ederdim’ diye buyurdukları mervîdir.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib,
Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 232-233.
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who could not appreciate the value of an artist like İmâd. Both Gülzâr-ı Savâb and
Devhatü’l-Küttâb also accused him of having prevented the dissemination (münteşir)
of İmâd’s works to the lands of Rum by keeping the calligrapher occupied by
commissioning him to write a very long work, that is Shahnama of Firdevsi.186
A further anecdote that illustrates the role of calligraphy in the cultural
exchange and artistic rivalry that took place between the Ottomans and Safavids
comes from Raşid’s history. According to Raşid, Damad İbrahim Paşa organized a
meeting between the Ottoman calligraphers and the Persian ambassador Murtaza
Kuli Han in the year 1721 because he wanted to show the ambassador the fineness of
Ottoman calligraphy. There, Murtaza Kuli Han wanted to test the Ottoman
calligraphers with a fake nestalik kıta signed by the name of İmâd. When the
Ottoman calligraphers realized that the writing was inauthentic, the ambassador was
surprised by their knowledge of calligraphy and their skills in distinguishing
calligraphy works. Damad İbrahim Paşa wanted the ambassador to view the nestalik
kıtas of the Ottoman calligrapher Veliyüddin Efendi (see Appendix B, Figure 25).
The ambassador, surprised by the fineness and quality of Veliyüddin Efendi’s style
in calligraphy, dubbed him “the İmâd of Rum” (İmâd-ı Rum).187 Obviously, having
courtiers who owned fine calligraphy was a source of prestige and thus, became a
subject in the artistic rivalry between the two states. But, it is also interesting to
notice that the tool that Damad İbrahim Paşa used in the artistic rivalry with the
186 “Zülâl-i âsârı diyâr-ı Rûm’a münteşir olmasın diye Şâh-ı güm-râh-ı bî-merhamet mahz-ı
ihânetinden nâşî Firdevsî’nin Şâhnâme’sin bi’t-tamâm tahrîr ettirip, işgâl eylemiştir.” Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 233. Also see Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi, Gülzâr-ı Savâb, 81.
187 Raşid, Tarih-i Raşid vol. IV, 417, quoted in Keskiner, “Sultan Ahmed III (r.1703-1730) as a
Calligrapher and Patron of Calligraphy,” 85.
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Safavids was Veliyyüddin Efendi’s calligraphic works in talik and nestalik, scripts
that were identified with the Persian tradition of calligraphy. Thus, besides being a
sign of cultural interaction and artistic rivalry among the Ottomans and Safavids, the
anecdote might be read as a claim of Ottoman superiority in calligraphy even in
script types identified with the Persian or Safavid tradition.
Until now, I have dealt with the histories of writing presented in the prefaces.
I have shown that the prefaces do not represent calligraphy as a practice that has an
exclusively sacred function. The stories, hadiths and Qur’anic verses cited by the
authors definitively assert that calligraphy has political and social functions, too. In
this context, I discussed the role of script type as a component of the early modern
Ottoman imperial identity by way of showing the territorial dimension and artistic
rivalry that the authors insert into the history of Ottoman calligraphy. Devhatü’l-
Küttâb exposes a relatively different kind of calligrapher figure, one who was
embedded in a more diversified worldly context. From now on, I will focus on the
Devhatü’l-Küttâb and discuss the feautures of the text that differ from the previous
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
2.7 Devhatü’l-Küttâb: Calligrapher in the milieu
Devhatü’l-Küttâb provides a different discourse on the act of writing and a different
way of representation of calligraphy and the calligrapher than the two previous
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. These differences are much more apparent
in the biographical entries than in the preface, where there is still considerable
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continuity with the earlier discourses. In Devhatü’l-Küttâb the biographies tend to be
longer and more detailed compared to the previous examples of the genre. In the
biographical entries of Devhatü’l-Küttâb the training process and the role of the
actors in it are precisely indicated, the career lines are more detailed, patronage
relations are manifested, specific scripts in which the individual is excelled and his
oeuvre are stated.
In the biographical entries of Devhatü’l-Küttâb the sacred connotations and
contexts of the act of writing are downplayed compared to the earlier biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers. Instead the text gives detailed information on the
training of the calligraphers. Rather than an allegedly inborn ability, a technical
training process in calligraphy is shown to be the main factor for success in writing.
In this regard, in the biographical entries the names of the masters are indicated one
by one and the education process is exposed step by step. The reasons behind the act
of taking up the study of calligraphy are not explained in terms of revelations, saintly
miracles, inborn talents or desires. Calligraphy is taken as a practice that is learnt
from certain actors and in certain institutions. Since the ways of the transmission of
knowledge are narrated in a more detailed way, the idea that calligraphic ability is
attained through education comes to the foreground. In this regard, it might be said
that the act of and the ability of beautiful writing are presented in a more “technical”
way. In the biographical entries the names of the first and sometimes second masters
of the calligrapher, the names of the primary schools or institutions he attended, the
specific script types that the individual learnt from a master and the training style are
all indicated in detail. These detailed narratives are significant to understand both the
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positioning of calligraphy in a worldly context and the ways the individuals became
acquainted with the written word in the early modern Ottoman world. For this reason
the actors, institutions and the ways of the transmission of knowledge of calligraphy
will be examined as they are reflected upon the text.
First it should be noted that for more than half of the calligraphers whose
biographies are covered in the text it is mentioned that they had their training in
calligraphy in Istanbul. These scribes were either born in Istanbul, or had migrated
there for their training. So, the city of Istanbul is represented as the main training
ground of calligraphers and as the intellectual and cultural capital of the empire.188
As Blair argues, from the end of the seventeenth century onwards Istanbul had
flourished as an important city of calligraphy. The Ottoman tradition of calligraphy
had also become more vivid, enriched with the introduction of new styles and forms
and made its place besides the other traditions of calligraphy.189 Bursa, Edirne,
Amasya and Sarajevo also appear frequently as important calligraphy centers. But
compared to the previous biographical dictionaries of calligraphers the visibility of
these cities, for example Amasya in Gülzâr-ı Savâb, decreases in Devhatü’l-Küttâb.
The decrease might be interpreted as a sign of the weakening of the networks of
calligraphy education in these cities or of the flourishing of Istanbul with new venues
to learn calligraphy and becoming of Istanbul a desired city with the opportunities it
188 For example, “Mâh-ı nev-vücûdları burc-ı sipihr-i nücûm-ı ma’ârif olan İstanbul’da tâbân olup [.]”
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 74; and “Me’vâ-yı ma’rifet-mendân olan
İstanbul’dandır.” Ibid., 80.
189 Sheila Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Pres, 2006), 483-485. Also
see Alparslan, 64-78. For further information on the innovations in the Ottoman calligraphy styles
during the eighteenth-century see the third chapter of this thesis.
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provided for the individuals who had skills in calligraphy to enter into bureaucratic
and ulema circles.190 The biographical entries present many individuals who
migrated to Istanbul with the hope of getting an instruction in calligraphy.191 As we
learn from their biographies all these individuals after learning calligraphy found a
job in the city as copyist, calligraphy instructors or in the bureaucracy and ulema
circles.
The periods of childhood and youth are periodically referenced in the
biographical entries as periods of instruction. The author emphasizes that the
individual did not waste his time and devoted his childhood and youth to his
education and intellectual development in various fields.192 The author mentions for
some individuals that they learned how to write from their fathers. The relationship
between father and son is always defined as an educational relationship.193 Given the
scarcity of studies on early modern Ottoman notions of childhood, youth and
parenthood it is hard to make detailed assessments about these sections. Yet, the
author’s emphasis on training and self-development during the years of childhood
190 For the bureaucracy cadres which became a channel for social mobility at the beginning of the
eighteenth century see Fatih Yeşil, Aydınlanma Çağında Bir Osmanlı Katibi: Ebubekir Ratib Efendi
(1750-1799), (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2010), 22. For the significant centers of
calligraphy training before the emergence of İstanbul as the main training ground of calligraphy see
Alparslan, 25-30.
191 For example, “Anadolu’dandır […] Dârü’s-Saltanati’l-Aliyyeti’l-Osmâniyye’ye arzû-yı tahsîl-i
hüsn-i hat ve icrâ-yı mahâret vaz’ı irâb ve nukat ve aklâm-ı sitteyi itmâm için İstanbul’a geldiklerinde
[.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb,124; also see the biographical entry covering
Tıybî Mustafa Efendi in Ibid., 201.
192 For example, “Unfuvân-ı şebâblarından beri evkātın izâ’at etmeyip, nahv-i ilm ve fazl ü kemâle
sarf ve ulemâ ve fuhûl meyânında te’lîfâtı ve âsâr-ı bâhirü’l-berekâtı makbûl, adîli nâ-yâb ma’ârif
mendan olup, ulûm-i mütedâvileyi tekmîl buyurmuşlardır.” Ibid., 129-130. This same phrase recurred
with little changes throughout the text.
193 For example, “ [V]âlid-i mâcid-i kesîrü’l-mahâmidlerinden taallüm ve temeşşük buyurup [.]” Ibid.,
190. For other examples see the biographical entries covering Derviş İbrâhim Efendi, Seyyid
Abdullah Efendi, Seyyid Abdülhalim Efendi, Vâkıf Seyyid Yahyâ Efendi in Ibid., 143, 164, 165, 336.
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and youth might be regarded as another sign that calligraphy was perceived as a
practice that one learned through various agents, not as an inborn talent within a
sacred context. The teaching of writing by father to son reminds us of the importance
of the family as an important venue for the transmission of knowledge alongside
more institutionalized settings such as the Qur’an schools.
2.8 Imams and instructors at the Qur’an schools: New actors in the transmission of
calligraphy skills
Compared to the earlier biographical dictionaries of calligraphers new actors in the
transmission of knowledge are introduced in Devhatü’l-Küttâb. Imams and
instructors at Qur’an schools (sıbyan mektebs) draw attention as two important
groups in the transmission of knowledge of writing. Since imams and instructors at
Qur’an schools appear in Devhatü’l-Küttâb both as calligraphers and as calligraphy
instructors a need arises to consider them as important agents of literacy in the early
modern Ottoman Empire.
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib covers the biographies of imams as important
agents in the transmission of the knowledge of calligraphy. They appear as
calligraphy instructors and copyists of many books. They are represented as
individuals whose moral probity, intellectual background and pedagogical role were
appreciated by the community of calligraphers.194 İmams were generally noted to
194 For example, see the biographical entries covering Ahmed Efendi el-İmam, İmam Ahmed Efendi,
Halil Efendi, Derviş Ali Efendi el-İmam, Tıybî Mustafa Efendi, Vasık İbrâhim Efendi in Ibid., 85, 87,
144, 201, 332.
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have copied innumerable En’âm, Evrâd and Qur’ans.195 One of Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib’s students, imam of Davut Ağa mosque Ahmet Efendi el-İmam, is
noted to have reproduced such works as “Tefsîr-i Kebîr-i Fahr-i Râzî, Tefsîr-i
Celâleyn, Şifâ-i Kadı İyâz and Tefsîrü’n-Nişâbûrî.”196 Since he produced a vast
number of copies and since books written by his hand were given place in the
libraries of ulema, he was also praised as a successful calligrapher.197
The titles of the books that they copied are significant to consider because
they might give us clues on the possible consumers of the texts. İsmail E. Erünsal, in
his study on Ottoman booksellers (sahafs), remarks that many sahafs also worked as
imams, müezzins and müderrises.198 Additionally, Erünsal points to the probate
records of imams. Since in these probate records many copies of the same book can
be found, Erünsal concludes that imams played an active role in the book trade.199
The information we gather from Devhatü’l-Küttâb points to the same fact. Maybe,
the imams sold the En’âm, Evrâd and Qur’ans to the consumers in their community.
Or, as we learn from Devhatü’l-Küttâb, since the books they copied were situated in
the libraries of ulema there might have been a client-seller relationship between
195 For example, “[M]üteaddid mesâhif-i şerîfe cihân-hediyye tahrîr ve En’âm ve Evrâd-ı latîfe-i
behiyye tastīr-i dil-pezîrleri makbûl-i erbâb-ı kemâl ü ma’rifet [.]” Ibid., 144; “[N]ice mesâhif-i şerîfe
ve Evrâd ve En’âm ve âsâr-ı sâire-i pür-i’tibâr-ı nazîfe kitâbet buyurmuşlardır.” Ibid., 166.
196 Ibid., 85.
197 “[V]e lâ yu’add ve lâ yuhsâ tahrîrleri mahfûz-ı kütübhâne-i kibâr-ı ulemâdır.” Ibid., 85. For another
example of a calligrapher whose works given place in the libraries of prominent people, see the
biographical entries covering Hanif İbrâhim Efendi, Seyyid Osman Efendi. Ibid., 130 and 181.
198 İsmail E. Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar (İstanbul: Timaş Yayınları, 2013), 115.
199 Ibid., 125.
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imams and individuals from the higher echelons of the ulema. There is no
information in the text on how the book trade between the imams and their
consumers was conducted. But since the author himself was a judge, it must not be a
coincidence that many imams he counted were copying books that judges were
consulting. He might have been one of the clients of these imams and thus he was
able to draw a picture of the book market and to show where to find a specific type
of book.
The existing studies on Qur’an schools mostly focus on the administrative
and physical structure of these institutions by showing the construction process of
school building, architectural elements, and geographical dimensions in the quarters,
the administrative personnel of the schools and their salaries.200 Although these are
valuable and rare studies, they do not offer much information on the role of the
Qur’an schools in the acquisition of literacy, and they do not address the changing
practices in the education that was on offer in Qur’an schools. Rather, they give
quantitative data taken from vakfiyes, which are the major primary sources of these
studies.
On the other hand a recent study by Konrad Hirschler which focuses on the
spread of the written word and its effects on the reading and writing practices in the
medieval Egypt and Syria touches upon the changing dynamics and curricula of the
Qur’an schools and their roles in the textualisation process and the popularization of
200 For example see Mefail Hızlı, Mahkeme Sicillerine Göre Osmanlı Klasik Dönemi’nde İlköğretim
ve Bursa Sıbyan Mektepleri (Bursa: Uludağ Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1999); Özgönül Aksoy, Osmanlı
Devri İstanbul Sıbyan Mektepleri Üzerine Bir İnceleme (İstanbul: İsmail Akgün Matbaası, 1968).
88
the written word.201 One of the major merits of Hirschler’s study for the concerns of
my study is his historical perspective on the Qur’an schools, which contrasts with the
studies conducted on the Ottoman Qur’an schools.202 In contrast to the latter studies
he does not present the Qur’an schools as static and monolithic institutions with the
assumption that instruction in writing has always been in the curricula of these
schools from the beginning. Rather, he argues that reading and writing became a
more important component of school education after the eleventh century and he
conceptualizes this transformation or new phase in the school education as
“textualisation of the curricula.”203 He constructs his arguments by using various
kinds of sources such as marginalia and manuscript illustrations. For the early
modern Ottoman Qur’an schools there is no study that is comparable to Hirschler’s,
which examines the role of writing in their curricula. Yet, at the same time, it is
ahistorical to assume that writing was always a part of the curricula by taking only
the vakfiyes into account. More studies which use various kinds of sources are
required in order to understand the place of writing in the early modern Ottoman
children’s schools, their functions and their effects on the reading and writing
practices.
In Devhatü’l-Küttâb the instructors at the Qur’an schools appear as one of the
addresses for the people who wanted to learn reading and writing skills. The
instructors are depicted as masters of calligraphy and as individuals with skills in
201 Konrad Hirschler, The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History
of Reading Practices ( Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012).
202 Ibid., 82-124.
203 Ibid., 83-91.
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calligraphy. For example İsmail Efendi learnt sülüs and nesih from his father Hafız
Hoca and later he himself became an instructor at the Qur’an school, which was
located near to the grave of Ebu’s-Suud Efendi.204 The author ends the entry, which
covers the life story of İbrahim Efendi, with the remark that he is one of the fine
calligraphers (hoş-nüvîsân) among the instructors at Qur’an schools in the reign of
Mahmud I (r. 1730-1754).205 Another individual, İsmail Efendi, who was an
instructor at the Ağakapısı Mektebi, was considered to be superior to his fellow
calligraphers in training many students206 (see Appendix B, Figure 26). The author
himself received his first training in calligraphy at the Valide Sultan Mektebi, and he
admires and praises his teacher Mustafa Efendi for his contribution to his
development.207 It is striking that compared to the earlier biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers, in Devhatü’l-Küttâb the names of the instructors and the children’s
schools appear frequently. This might be interpreted as a sign of the increasing role
of Qur’an schools as institutions teaching reading and writing, and the increasing
role of writing in their curricula at the first half of the eighteenth century.
204 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 85-86.
205 “Ahd-i Sultân Mahmûd Hân-ı Gāzi’de bulunan muallimân-ı mektebin hoş-nüvîsânındandır.” Ibid.,
86.
206 “Ağakapısı Mektebi hocası demekle şöhret-yâb, üstâd-ı âlem-gîr-i âlî-cenâb olup, hattâtînin ekmeli
câ’iyü-z-zikr Derviş Ali Efendi’den telemmüz ve temeşşük buyurup nice nice şâkirdân-ı ma’ârifmendân
ile mu’âsırlarına tefevvuk buyurmuşlardır.” Ibid., 73.
207 “Bu abd-i fakîr avân-ı tufûliyette mekteb-i merkūmda mukīm ve taallüm-i Kur’ân-ı Kerîm ve
âzmâyiş-i meşk-i hat ve ta’lîm edip, ol pîr-i münîrin yümn-i terbiyesi dekāyık-ı hüsn-i hatta sa’y ü
himmete bâdî olmuştur.” Ibid., 287. For further examples on the instructors at the Qur’an schools see
the biographical entries covering Hocazâde Mehmed Efendi, Râkım Mustafa Efendi, Salâtizâde
Mustafa Efendi, Mustafa Çelebi in Ibid., 134, 154, 195 and 298.
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Two other institutions, Enderun and Saray-ı Galata, are presented as
significant centers for instruction in calligraphy.208 As places where the personnel for
the state’s bureaucratic cadres were trained, calligraphy appears as a component of
their curricula. These institutions are depicted as places in which individuals were
intellectually improving and gradually developing their skills in calligraphy.209 In
this fashion, Mehmet Halife’s Tarih-i Gilmani, which is an important source about
life at the Enderun, demonstrates that good handwriting was reckoned as one of the
acclaimed intellectual and cultural activities maintained by the kuls in the palace
school.210 Both Mehmet Halife’s narrative and Devhatü’l-Küttâb indicate that it was
considered a prestigious position to be a calligraphy instructor (meşk muallimi) at the
palace school.211
208 On the Enderun and Saray-ı Galata, see İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Saray
Teşkilatı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1984), 297-339.
209 “Enderûn-ı Sarây-ı Hümâyûn’da sa’y ve tahsîl-i ma’rifet ve hünerle evkāt-güzâr olup [.]”
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 293. For another example “Sarây-ı Hümâyûn
gılmânından iken […] evâil-i hallerinde ressâm-ı sikke Ömer Efendi’den vâdî-i hattı görmüşlerdir.”
Ibid., 185.
210 Mehmet Halife, Tarih-i Gılmani, ed. Kamil Su (İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1976), 147-155.
Also, in the memoirs of Ottaviano Bon, there exists some information on the education of kuls in the
palace school. For example, “Then are they circumcised, and made Turks, and set to learn the Turkish
tongue; and according as their several inclinations are discovered and discerned by their overseers, so
are they encouraged in the same, and suffered to proceed: and such, as have a desire to learn, are
taught to read and write.” Ottoviano Bon, The Sultan’s Seraglio: An Intimate Portait of Life at the
Ottoman Court, ed. John Withers and Godfrey Goodwin (London: Saqi Books, 1996), 60. Also see
Ibid., 69, 70.
211 “ […] Mehmet Halife adındaki kiler imamı hoş yaradılışlı, çok bilgili, akranları arasında sivrilmiş
bir kimse olup Galatasaray hocalığıyle isteğine kavuştu.” Mehmet Halife, 151. For another example, “
Peşgir oğlanı iken Galatasaray hocalığı ile isteğine kavuştu.” Ibid., 151.
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2.9 Meclises and friendships: Oral modes of transmission of knowledge
In addition to Qur’an schools, salons (meclises) also appear as fora where knowledge
about calligraphy was transmitted. There the calligraphers would converse with each
other on calligraphy and share their knowledge and experiences. The salons that the
calligraphers were attended were often represented as part of their education process.
In Devhatü’l-Küttâb the salons of calligraphers are especially prominent in the
biographical entries of the calligraphers who lived in the late seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
For example, the salons that Derviş Ali el-Ma’rûf attended are depicted as
having been more important for his education than his training by a master.212
Likewise, the author writes about a certain Ahmet Efendi, one the participants of the
salons, that he was a particularly important fixture of salons and stood out among his
peers with his learned talk about the fine points of calligraphy. Apparently, the
audience listened to him carefully and with admiration.213 The salons appear also as
spaces where the calligraphers demonstrated the fruits of their education and
successful careers. To be accepted into these salons, to draw the attention of other
attendants and to be appreciated by them for their skills in rhetoric, music, poetry and
calligraphy were significant proofs for the success of the calligrapher in his art and
career. As a sign of the calligrapher’s being appreciated and admired in the salons
212 “ [U]lemâ ve esâtîz-i hutût ile sohbet ve mecâlis-i ma’ârif-mevfûrlarında tahsîl-i kemâl ve ma’rifet
edip, aklâm-ı sitteyi itkān [.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 142.
213 “Ve ekser şürekâ ve mu’âsırlarından imtiyâz sevdâsıyla izâ’at-ı eyyâm edip, dekāyık-ı hattan bahse
ağāz eyledikde hâzır olan müstemi’în-i sâde-dilân-ı hat-nedânı dem-beste ve hayrân ederdi.” Ibid., 77-
78.
92
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib identifies some calligraphers as charmers of salons
(safa-bahş-i mecalis, meclis-ara).214 The friendship between the author and Râsim
Mehmed Efendi is presented as a mutual relationship, which was in nature
instructive and which entailed an exchange of knowledge.215 The frequent references
to salons and relations of friendship in Devhatü’l-Küttâb as one of the training
grounds provide the representation of the practice of calligraphy as a collective or
social practice. It is known that from the Timurid period onward calligraphy and
salon culture intertwined (see Appendix B, Figure 27). In this regard, it is seen that
practicing calligraphy continued to be a part of the early eighteenth century Ottoman
salons.
2.10 Calligraphy in circulation: The calligraphy example as a transmitter of
knowledge
Works of calligraphy or written exempla should be counted among the tools of
instruction. The calligraphers used these single sheet works to study and imitate the
calligraphy styles of masters. The use of single sheet works is indicative of the
existence of indirect ways of transmission of knowledge too, which was realized
through the paper model alone independently besides studying under the guidance of
214 For example see the biographical entries covering Câbîzâde Abdullah Efendi, Çıkrıkîzâde Ali
Efendi, Derviş Ahmed Çelebi, Osman Ağa, Yusuf Efendi in Ibid., 111, 112, 144, 228 and 349.
215 “ Bu fakîr rütbe-i uhuvvette nice şuhûr ve a’vâm bâ-hulûs ve mahabbet sohbet ve ülfetimiz ve
tahsîl-i ulûm-i nâfi’ada şirketimiz ber-devâm olduğu esnâda dekāyık ve mezâyâ-yı hat ve kalemde
mültezim olan hakāyık-nikât-ı katt belki evzâ’-ı i’râb ve nukatı dahi mahabbet zere [mübâhase ve
müzâkere ile birbirimizlerinden ifâdeyi mültezim edip,] istifâden hālî olmamışızdır.” Ibid., 151.
93
a living master. In this aspect, Roxburgh states that “[t]he paper model offered the
most effective means of calligraphic transmission and dissemination[n.]”216 The
single sheet works not only present important evidence about how people acquired
knowledge of calligraphy but also indicate to us how the work of a given calligrapher
was disseminated.
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib states about some calligraphers that their works
were installed within students’ cilbend, which was “a large pocket-book, a
portfolio.”217 He brings this up usually in praise of the calligraphic skills of the
calligrapher in question; because the masters’ and students’ ownership of a work of a
calligrapher showed his prestigious position within the circle of calligraphers. Thus,
the more a calligrapher’s works circulated, the greater prestige he gained. For
example, Derviş Ahmed Efendi’s works of calligraphy embellished many students’
pocket-books (cilbend-i tullâb); and the author reckons the spread of his works as a
step in his career line and as the reason of his fame among the community of
calligraphers.218 So, the practice of collecting and taste of the audience could have an
influence on the value and the future of a work of art.
216 Roxburgh, “On the Transmission and Reconstruction of Arabic Calligraphy: Ibn al-Bawwab and
History” Studia Islamica, No. 96, Écriture, Calligraphie et Peinture (2003), 46. Roxburgh examines
the remarks about the ownersip and circulation of the single sheet works, especially works of Ibn al-
Bawwab, in the biographies of calligraphers.
217 For the term ‘jilbend’, see Turkish and English Lexicon, ed. Sir James W. Redhouse, 3rd ed.
(İstanbul: Çağrı Yayınları, 2006), 669. Also Mahmut Behreddin Yazır defines ‘cilbend’ as “[a]harlı,
mühreli kağıdları, yazıları muhafaza için kullanılan mukavvadan veya deriden yapılmış, kitap kabı
gibi büyükçe bir mahfaza.” Mahmut Behreddin Yazır, Medeniyet Alemi’nde Yazı ve İslam
Medeniyeti’nde Kalem Güzeli (Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı Yayınları, 1981), 176.
218 “Metânetten ibâret mesâhif-i şerîfe-i müte’addide ve âsâr-ı latîfe-i pesendîdeleri zînet-efzâ-yı
cilbend-i tullâb, zât-ı sütûde-cenâb idiler.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 143. For
other examples, see the biographical entries covering Çelebi İmam, Cabîzâde Abdullah Efendi, Şeref
94
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib also gives information about people who
collected works of calligraphy. These collectors were also significant actors in the
transmission of knowledge about calligraphy. For example, İsmail Efendi possessed
works of calligraphy by Şeyh Hamdullah and showed them to calligraphy
students.219 It might be presumed that the works of a prominent calligrapher like
Şeyh Hamdullah had such high value that it was highly improbable for a student to
own any. Thus, İsmail Efendi played the role of a mediator between the students and
the works of Şeyh Hamdullah, and he was praised very much for his active role in
the transmission of Şeyh Hamdullah’s style to future generations of calligraphers as
well as for his contribution to the students’ development by providing them with
access to such valuable works of art.220 This reminds us once again of the fact that in
addition to studying with master calligraphers and socializing with their patrons and
friends, studying the paper model was also an important component of calligraphic
instruction.
Another notable feature of the Devhatü’l-Küttâb is the greater diversity of
types of texts that are mentioned in the text. Whereas for the most part the Qur’an is
mentioned in Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân and Gülzâr-ı Savâb as a text copied by famous
calligraphers, a multiplicity of texts from various genres are mentioned in the
Devhatü’l-Küttâb. Calligraphers are not presented as copyists of sacred texts alone.
Mehmed Efendi, Salih Çelebi, Sahhaf Halil Efendi, Nuh Efendi in Ibid., 111, 111, 190, 195, 196 and
326.
219 Ibid., 70.
220 “ Ve eslâf-ü ahlâfın nâil olamadığı Hazret-i İbnü’ş-Şeyh’in hattıyla mushaf-ı şerîf ve En’âm-ı latîf
ve müdevven murakkka’ât ve kıt’a’ât sandûk-ı temellüklerini müzeyyen etmekle dil-dâde-i ni’met ve
sâl-i şâhid- hüsn-i hat olan tullâb-ı sütûde cenâbı ziyâfet-i çeşm-i ibret-bîn ile kâm-yâb ve kâm-bîn
buyurup isticlâb-ı hayr du’âdan hālî olmayan zât-ı mükerremlerdendir.” Ibid., 75.
95
Some of the books that are mentioned in Devhatü’l-Küttâb as being copied are as
follows: Mesnevî-i Molla Celâl, Hamse-i Hayâtîzaâde which consists of five tracts
on medicine, Katip Çelebi’s Cihânnümâ, Mustafa ‘Âli’s Künhü’l-Ahbar, Katip
Çelebi’s Atlas. The works from various genres such as history, siyer and prose
writing, dictionaries, divans and mecmuas are also indicated as being copied. Thus,
the terms hatt and kitâbet are not used by the author only to refer to copying sacred
books, making iconographic calligraphy works and inscriptions, but also to write or
copy books on various secular subjects. When the subjects of the above-mentioned
books are considered one can argue that the books also testify to a certain degree of
secularization of learning in the eighteenth century.
The calligraphers in the Devhatü’l-Küttâb are not presented as individuals
whose merits are limited with coping texts properly and having knowledge about
correct phrasing and preparation of documents. As it can be deduced from the text,
the skills in calligraphy were not enough to be successful and esteemed as a scribe or
calligrapher. The position of the calligrapher in the milieu would be enhanced with
his skills in eloquence, poetry in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, prose writing, music,
etc. Thus, Devhatü’l-Küttâb presents a literate individual whose literacy was not
limited to the ability to read and write beautifully. The profile of literate as it is
pictured in Devhatü’l-Küttâb is a polymath individual who has skills in different
branches of art and socialize in different socio-cultural venues. Throughout the text
this polymath individuals are situated in various milieus in which they built their
career, engaged in networking, participated into patronage relations and found
opportunities with the help of their skills in calligraphy and in other fields.
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Calligraphy is not presented in their life stories as their mere ability, but rather as one
of the components of their identity. For a better understanding of diversification of
the worldly context of calligraphy and the figuration of the calligrapher as a
polymath individual in Devhatü’l-Küttâb the historical context in which the text is
composed and its major social, cultural and political trends should be analyzed.
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CHAPTER 3
A CONTEXTUALIZED READING OF THE DEVHATÜ’L-KÜTTÂB
3.1 The historical context
The period in which Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib wrote his biographical dictionary,
namely the first half of the eighteenth century, has been the subject of a number of
recent studies. Especially the period until 1730, which was dubbed the “Tulip Age”
in the early twentieth century, has attracted the interest of scholars. 221 In the old
historiography the period was seen as either a continuation of the ancien régime,
which was associated with unending decadence, or as the beginning of
modernization-cum-Westernization.222 According to the old historiography, the
period happened to be a predecessor of secularism and Westernization and a period
of scientific and artistic revival. And, it was portrayed as a period in which the
Ottomans found many opportunities to recover from decline and decadence, but in
which their attempts to modernize/westernize were cut short by the opposition of
religious fanatics in the form of the Patrona Halil Rebellion in 1730. The emphasis of
the old school historiography was on the orientation of the Ottomans towards
221 For a discussion on the concept “Tulip Age” see Can Erimtan, Ottomans Looking West? The
Origins of the Tulip Age and Its Development in Modern Turkey, (London and New York: I. B.
Tauris, 2008). Also see Can Erimtan, “The Sources of Ahmed Refik’s Lâle Devri and the Paradigm of
the ‘Tulip Age’: A Teleological Agenda,” Essays in Honor of Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu: Societies,
Cultures, Sciences: A Collection of Articles, vol. I, (İstanbul: IRCICA, 2006), 259-278.
222 For a comprehensive historiographical overview which examines the perceptions concerning the
period between 1718-1730 that formed in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century see Selim
Karahasanoğlu, “A Tulip Age Legend: Consumer Behavior and Material Culture in the Ottoman
Empire (1718-1730),” (Unpublished PhD. diss., Binghamton University, 2009). Also see
Karahasanoğlu, “Osmanlı Tarihyazımında ‘Lale Devri’: Eleştirel Bir Değerlendirme,” Tarih ve
Toplum: Yeni Yaklaşımlar 7 (2008): 129-144.
98
Western Europe for the first time. Accordingly, the Ottomans were characterized
only as passive and inferior recipients of Western “influences”. Yet, recent studies
have started to re-examine the eighteenth-century Ottoman world by adding to their
historical narrative intra-structural transformations and changing dynamics within
state and society.223 Rather than seeing the beginnings of transformation in the
eighteenth or nineteenth century, the new scholarship tends to conceptualize and
portray a longer process of transformation in a broader global scale. Thus, rather than
characterizing a fixed and an unchanged non-Western world before the nineteenth
century, the new scholarship puts forward the internal and external dynamics of
transformation within this world and talks about a process of “early modernity” or
“early modernities” in a global scale.
Thus, in contrast to the old historiography, the concept of “early modernity”
paves the way for the emergence of new perspectives on the process of Ottoman
transformations. Rather than seeing the nineteenth century as the ultimate
crystallization of the transformations, this concept envisages the social, cultural,
political and economic transformations in a broader process. Instead of a Eurocentric
model of modernity, the concept “early modernity” embraces multiple forms of
modernity within a global scale and various kinds of interactions within the process
of transformation, including the intractions with the non-Western world. In this
regard, it points to the different dimensions and transformations of the Ottoman
223 Besides a discussion on the tendencies of the old historiography, Jane Hathaway puts forward
some suggestions concerning the future directions of the history writing on the eighteenth century.
See Jane Hathaway, “Rewriting Eighteenth-Century Ottoman History,” Mediterranean Historical
Review 19:1 (2007): 29-53. Also see Karl Barbir, “The Changing Face of the Ottoman Empire in the
Eighteenth Century: Past and Future Scholarship,” Oriente Moderno 18/1 (1999): 253-267.
99
world before the nineteenth century than the Westernization and decline paradigms
do.
The rising power and wealth of groups other than the imperial elite such as
the janissaries, local notables, bureaucrats and palace staff after the post-Suleimanic
age which have been seen as the corruption of the order by the old historiography,
are now perceived as phenomena showing the expansion of the state apparatus and
political power to various social groups. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
witnessed the disempowerment of the sultan in relation to the development of the
state apparatus as a seperate entity from the sultan.224 Thus, the political visibility of
various actors increased in this period. Regarding the eighteenth century, Baki
Tezcan draws attention to the changing positions of the members of the ulema and
bureaucracy which were two important political bodies.225 It is important to notice
that while the biographical dictionaries of the judicial elite disappeared, biographies
of viziers and secretaries started to appear in the “historiographical corpus” of the
eighteenth century.226 It is a telling fact of the increasing power of the viziers and
bureaucrats from the first half of the eighteenth century onwards.
The increasing political visibility of various actors and the accumulation of
material wealth by various sectors of society are observable in the transformation of
224 Baki Tezcan, “The Politics of Early Modern Historiography” in The Early Modern Ottomans:
Remapping the Empire, ed. Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 167-198.
225 Ibid., 193.
226 Ibid., 193.
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urban space and urban practices during the eighteenth century in Istanbul.227 An
opening-up both in the patronage practices and in the architectural styles is seen.
Compared to the earlier centuries, the century is remarked with increasing social
mobility, which led to transformations in the consumption, recreational and cultural
practices.228 In contrast to the earlier periods in which the cultural forms, spaces and
practices had been in the realm of the imperial elite to a large extend, the eighteenth
century witnessed their spread to a wider urban society. In other words, the previous
traces of social distinction in the architectural and patronage practices were blurred
and people from a broader social spectrum began to participate in the making of the
city such as people in the palace service, the military and the bureaucracy, middle
class women, merchants and artisans.229 For example, as an appropriate and cheap
way of smaller-scale patronage the newly built fountains demonstrate the wide
spectrum of the patrons, the existing social mobility and the newly emerging actors
in the public sphere of the period.
Yet, all these developments should not be understood as a withdrawl of the
imperial elite from the patronage activities and the making of the city. The tendency
of the revisionist historiography to focus on smaller-scale and secular structures like
fountains and pavilions “created a misleadingly democratized impression of
227 Shirine Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 2008).
228 Ibid., 6.
229 Ibid., 13.
101
eighteenth-century Ottoman patronage.” 230 It is important to notice that the
beginning of the eighteenth century witnessed the transfer of the imperial court from
Edirne back to Istanbul after an absence of approximately fifty years. After 1703, it
is seen that the imperial elite undertook extensive building activity in the city by
sponsoring imperial mosques, palaces, public gardens, fountains and other structures.
In his recent PhD. thesis Ünver Rüstem observes a revival of imperial mosques
during this period and argues that the sultans were still the major arbiters of taste and
patrons of the empire. He does not take the patronage activities of lesser patrons and
the usage of patronage as a tool of social display by people from a wider scale as
primary features of the eighteenth-century Istanbul.
It is true that the remaking of Istanbul as the main imperial residence became
an important concern of the state at the beginning of the eighteenth century and one
of the major concerns of the state was to reestablish the Ottoman imperial identity in
the city by way of patronage activities and flourishing of arts.231 Yet, I think, to
consider these two phenomena, the coming of new actors into the patronage activity
and the revival of imperial patronage, as separate from or opposed each other might
create an ahistorical dichotomy. An attempt to consider the patronage of different
forms of art instead of architectural patronage might give us better insights on the
changing patterns of patronage and cultural practices of the period. For example,
230 Ünver Rüstem, “Architecture for a New Age: Imperial Ottoman Mosques in Eighteenth-Century
Istanbul” (Unpublished PhD. diss., Harvard University, 2013), 22.
231 Ibid., 22. For the role of state in the remaking of Istanbul and in the flourishing of arts during the
eighteenth century see Tülay Artan, “Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century: Days of Reconciliation and
Consolidation,” in From Byzantion to Istanbul: 8000 Years of a Capital, exh. cat. (Istanbul: Sakıp
Sabancı Museum, 2010), 300-312; and Artan, “Arts and Architecture,” in The Later Ottoman Empire,
1603–1839, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi, vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of Turkey, ed. Metin Kunt
(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2006), 464–80.
102
Devhatü’l-Küttâb exhibits patrons of calligraphy both from the imperial elite and the
upper and lower echelons of bureaucracy and ulema. Also, it is certain that compared
to the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers written before the eighteenth century,
Devhatü’l-Küttâb represents calligraphy as an artistic practice performed by people
from various segments of the society. In other words, Devhatü’l-Küttâb represents
the expansion of this cultural practice to a wider social scale. It is difficult to argue
that the text portrays a cultural practice under the domination of the imperial elite
and an aesthetic taste only defined by the members of the imperial elite.
The new scholarship employing the concept of “early modernity” has also
emphasized the increase in transregional contacts in the eighteenth century. The
eighteenth century was a period in which cross-cultural interactions increased by the
flourishing of cultures of consumerism and diplomacy also in the Ottoman lands.232
In this context, the role of art and architecture was not limited to becoming a public
phenomenon. Nebahat Avcıoğlu and Finbarr Barry Flood draw attention to the art
and architecture as a cross-cultural concern by showing the increasing “transregional
circulation and consumption of artistic concepts, forms, images, and media” during
the eighteenth century. 233 Thus, the eighteenth-century Ottoman art and architecture
can be understood through an approach which tries to interpret the shared cultural
forms emerged in various contexts in relation to each other. For example, Rüstem
draws attention to the changes in the Ottoman conception of royal visibility and the
232 Rüstem, “Architecture for a New Age,” 21.
233 Nebahat Avcıoğlu and Finbarry Flood, “Introduction: Globalizing Cultures: Art and Mobility in
the Eighteenth Century,” Special Issue, Ars Orientalis Vol. 39, (2010), 9.
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usage of different elements to visualize the sultan’s authority like French models
used in the architecture.234 He historicizes the emergence of Ottoman Baroque and its
Western sources and attributes it to a strategy of the Ottoman dynasty to reinforce its
own royal visibility in the face of increasing global contact.
However, eighteenth-century Ottomans were not just interested in the West.
The eighteenth-century Ottoman world also exhibited a new kind of openness to the
Persian cultural world. In fact, the Ottomans were always interested in and under the
influence of the medieval Persian intellectual and artistic heritage. Yet, in the
eighteenth century this interest inclined towards the works of more contemporary
Persian thinkers and artistic examples. In this regard, instead of the Safavid
influences on Ottoman art and architecture, an interest on the Persian thought by the
Ottoman intellectuals is noticeable in the period.235 As I will discuss later, Devhatü’l-
Küttâb appears as a significant source that shows the major influence of Safavid
calligraphy styles and forms on the Ottoman calligraphy. The text demonstrates that
the Persian calligraphy examples were an important part of the artistic consumption
of the eighteenth-century Ottoman world. Especially the increasing popularity of
nestalik script and Safavid calligraphers such as İmâd demonstrates the increasing
cultural and artistic interactions between the Ottomans and Safavids. This might be
234 For a discussion on the Western sources of Sadabad Palace see Rüstem, “Architecture for a New
Age”, 43-58. B. Deniz Çalış offers a different perspective on the transregional contacts and she
examines the way the Ottomans interpreted the cultural influences of Safavid and French architectural
and garden designs. She stresses the effect of Melami mystical thoughts on the process of cultural
interpratation. See B. Deniz Çalış, “Gardens at Kağıthane Commons During the Tulip Period (1718-
1730)” in Middle East Garden Traditions: Unity and Diversity, Micheal Conan ed. (Washington, DC:
Dumbarton Oaks Publication, 2007), 238-266.
235 Henning Sievert, “Eavesdropping on the Pasha’s Salon: Usual and Unusual Readings of an
Eighteenth-Century Bureaucrat,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları/The Journal of Ottoman Studies XLI (2013),
159-195.
104
interpreted as a sign of changing dynamics of artistic and cultural dialogue between
the Ottomans and the Iranian world that is realized by the decrease in the tension and
rivalry with the decline of the Safavid state in 1736.
Devhatü’l-Küttâb manifests significant features of the eighteenth century
such as concern for self-display, greater social mobility, increasing political visibility
of various groups other than the imperial elite, flourishing culture of consumerism,
increase in diplomatics and intensification of trans-regional contacts. In this chapter,
I will try to analyze the text within this historical framework.
3.2 The life of the author within the biographical entries
In most of the biographical dictionaries we see that the authors also give some details
about their lives in passing. In other words, their own life story is embedded in the
life stories of other individuals. This fact is very much related to the authors’
tendency to write about the individuals that they know personally. So, there are many
instances of intersections of the life stories of the people and the authors in the
biographical dictionaries.236 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib does not narrate his own
236 Hatice Aynur shows how Âşık Çelebi narrates his own life story within the biographies of other
people in his biographical dictionaries of poets, namely Meşâ’irü’ş-Şu’arâ. Aynur observes that Âşık
Çelebi does not narrate his own life story under a separate biographical entry. Instead he gives some
information on his life in passing remarks in the preface of the biographical dictionary and in the
biographical entries of his family members, friends, teachers and others that he had a respect for. See
Hatice Aynur, “Kurgusu ve Vurgusuyla Kendi Kaleminden Âşık Çelebi’nin Yaşamöyküsü” in Âşık
Çelebi ve Şairler Tezkiresi Üzerine Yazılar, ed. Hatice Aynur, Aslı Niyazioğlu (İstanbul: Koç
Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2011), 19-56. Also see Aynur, “Autobiographical Elements in Aşık Çelebi’s
Dictionary of Poets” in Many Ways of Speaking About the Self: Middle Eastern Ego Documents in
Arabic, Persian, and Turkish (14th-20th century), Ralf Elger and Yavuz Köse (eds.), ( Wiesbaden:
Harasowitz Verlag, 2010), 17-26.
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life story under a separate entry. Yet, we find many fragments from his life in the
biographical entries about various individuals with whom he had personal contact.
For example in the biographical entry about Ömer Efendi (d. 1686), who was
an instructor at the Qur’an school built by Valide Sultan near Bahçekapısı and who
spent his life copying the Qur’an, we learn that he was the author’s father and that he
died at the age of forty when the author was only six months old (see Appendix B,
Figure 28). Then, the author talks about himself and states that with the passing away
of his father and then his grandfather Suyolcuzâde Mustafa Efendi (d. 1686) at the
same year, he became a forlorn and helpless orphan (see Appendix B, Figure 29). He
also laments that he could not ever again see the faces of his father and
grandfather.237 Under the biographical entry of a certain Osman Ağa, the author
mentions that he had enjoyed conversing with Osman Ağa, and listening to his
stories about the literary gatherings put together by the author’s father and
grandfather. He also refers to Osman Ağa as his spiritual father.238 In a similar vein
the author reveals some details of his own life in the biographical entry devoted to
Mustafa Efendi, who was also an instructor at the Qur’an school of Vâlide Sultân.239
At the end of the biographical entry the author starts to talk about himself and his
personal relationship with Mustafa Efendi: “This humble man followed the above-
237 “Bu fakîr-i sagīr şeş mâh ve yetîm-i bî-nasîr ve penâh bulunup fevt-i cedd-i mâcid ve mevt-i [vâlidi]
kesîrü’l-mahâmid bi-emrillâhi te’âlâ sâl-i vâhidde vâki’ olmakla o yüzden dahi müşâhede-i mir’ât-ı
cemâl-i peder ile dede-i merhûmu olduğu ehibbâya rûşen-terdir.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib,
Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 215.
238 “[B]u abd-i fakîr-i pür-taksîr nice eyyâm zevk-i sohbetlerine nâil ve nukl, nakl-i mecâlis-i vâlid ve
ceddimiz ârâyiş-i bezm-i safâ-yı derûn ve neşât-bahş-i dil mahzûn olmadan hālî değil, peder-i
ma’nevîmiz mesâbesinde bir pîr-i hoş-şemâil, sütûde-hasâ’il idiler.” Ibid., 228-229.
239 Ibid., 287.
106
mentioned Qur’an school, learnt Qur’an and practiced calligraphy there during his
childhood. Under his [Mustafa Efendi’s] mastery he learnt the intricacies of
calligraphy. He [Mustafa Efendi] was one of the proliferate and unique people who
excelled in child pedagogy (terbiyet-i etfâl).”240 One of the longest biographical
entries in the text belongs to Mustafa Çelebi, who was the son of Ahmed Efendi,
instructor at the Qur’an school near Baba Haydar Nakşibendî Mosque.241 The author
mentions that Mustafa Çelebi was his adopted son (veled-i ma’nevî) and informs the
reader on his skills in calligraphy and in other areas. After mentioning that Mustafa
Çelebi died at the age of fifteen because of the plague (tâ’ûn), the author again turns
back to himself, and states how much he worried because of the death of Mustafa
Çelebi. He writes that Mustafa Çelebi had helped him to compile (cem’ ü tertîb)
Devhatü’l-Küttâb and after the latter’s death he had to interrupt his writing because
of his grief. Even the poem in Arabic he added to the end of the biographical entry is
on his own grief.242 These examples show the intertwinement of biographical and
autobiographical narratives in Devhatü’l-Küttâb. The author’s inclusion of
individuals with whom he had personal contact into his biographical dictionary
enables him to talk about himself under the biographical entries of other people and
to situate himself in the world that he portrays.
240 “Bu abd-i fakîr avân-ı tufûliyette mekteb-i merkūmda mukīm ve taallüm-i Kur’ân-ı Kerîm ve
âzmâyiş-i meşk-i hat ve ta’lîm edip, ol pîr-i münîrin yümn-i terbiyesi dekāyık-ı hüsn-i hatta sa’y ü
himmete bâdî olmuştur. Kesîrü’l-âsâr, terbiyet-i etfâlde nâdîde-i rûzgâr idiler.” Ibid., 287.
241 Ibid., 298-300.
242 “Ah! Ölüm ve onun hallerinden neler çektim. Kalbim onun harâreti ile ne kadar yanıktır!” The
poem translated into Turkish by Ayşe Peyman Yaman. Ibid., 300.
107
3.3 The role of the author: The spokesman of the community, witness and
connoisseur
The reason to write a biographical dictionary might be understood as a way of the
author to obtain an authority over a subject or a group. In this sense, Devhatü’l-
Küttâb might be perceived as a way of Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib to claim
authority in the field of calligraphy and amongst the group of people interested in
calligraphy. Yet, when we read Devhatü’l-Küttâb it is noticeable that the author does
not position himself as an authority, but rather talks about the people and their works
by relying on the opinions of an anonymous community. Since the author does not
specify, it is difficult to draw the characteristics of this anonymous community
clearly. But it might be concluded that it consists of Istanbulites who were interested
in calligraphy and who took place in the social network of the author. The sense of a
community permeates throughout the biographical dictionary.
In general, the individuals and their works are told as known and liked by this
community. Words like mergûb (desired), makbûl (esteemed) and memdûh (praised)
are used frequently in order to identify an individual and his works. For example,
Ömer Efendi, who was an instructor at the Qur’an school of Yeni Vâlide Mosque in
Üsküdar, is described as “appreciated by skillful and sagacious people.”243 In the
same manner, one of the calligraphy instructors in the palace, Hüseyin Efendi el-
Hablî is described as “esteemed and praised by the old and the young.”244 The
243 “[P]esendîde-i erbâb-ı kemâl ve hüner olmuştur.” Ibid., 247.
244 “[M]emdûh ve makbûl-i kibâr ü sigar [.]” Ibid., 124.
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success of individuals in calligraphy is represented as being decided by the
consensus of the people who were interested in calligraphy.245 In other words, the
author writes as a spokesman of communal taste. Only in one or two examples does
he express his own opinion or criticize the works and behaviors of a person in a
negative manner. Zeynep Altok observes a similar tendency in Âşık Çelebi’s
biographical dictionary of poets and she argues that he never plays the role of a
“modern critic”.246 In a similar vein, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib does not generally
give himself the authority to be a critic.
On the other hand, in some parts of his biographical dictionary the author
ceases to write as the spokesman of communal taste and gives his own observations
on a person and his works instead. In these rare instances, the author intervenes in
the text in order to show the moments of selecting, evaluating and organizing his
material, that is, the people whose stories are recounted.247 He appears whether as a
witness of the skills of the person or as a connoisseur evaluating the works of
someone. For example, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib mentions himself as a witness
to the talents of Hüseyin Beşe ibn-i Ahmed, who was a janissary. We learn that
245 Cem Behar draws attention to a similar point in his book on an eighteenth century biographical
dictionary of musicians. Cem Behar, Şeyhülislâm’ın Müziği: 18. Yüzyılda Osmanlı/Türk Musıkisi ve
Şeyhülislâm Es’ad Efendi’nin Atrabü’l-Âsâr’ı (İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2010), 94.
246 Zeynep Altok, “Âşık Çelebi ve Edebî Kanon” in Âşık Çelebi ve Şairler Tezkiresi Üzerine Yazılar,
eds. Hatice Aynur, Aslı Niyazioğlu, 117-133.
247 Hilary Kilpatrick, in her article on the Abu l-Farağ’s (d. c. 363/ 972-3) biographies of poets,
observes that the author of the biographical dictionary intervenes into the text very often. She
observes that one of the reasons for these interventions is sourced from his aim to indicate his
evaluating, manipulating or organizing his material. See Hilary Kilpatrick, “Abu l-Farağ’s Profiles of
Poets: A 4th/10th. Century Essay at the History and Sociology of Arabic Literature,” Arabica 44,
Fasc. 1 (Jan., 1997): 94-128.
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although the janissary lost his right arm in the Island War (Ada muharebesi)248 when
he was hit by a cannon ball, he had a fairly good handwriting and copied many
Qur’ans and Delâ’ilü’l-hayrâts. The author says that he himself saw this janissary’s
works, and watched him while he was writing, and it was as a result of these
interactions that he decided to include an entry about him in the Devhatü’l-Küttâb.249
Probably, the author felt obliged to bring up his own role as a witness and a judge of
the works of this janissary because Hüseyin Beşe ibn-i Ahmed and his talents were
unknown to the wider community. Similarly, the author appears as a witness in the
biographical entry of Süleyman Efendi, who is said to have written with an iron pen
(demirden masnu’ hâme). The author explains the difficulty of Süleyman Efendi’s
calligraphy style by referring to his own unsuccessful experience: “This humble man
experienced and observed in his meetings with his cherub-friend (kerrûbî-enîs) the
impossibility of marking even a dot with the iron pen. But it was marvelous to watch
him write with this pen in his blessed hands.”250 It seems that the author intervenes in
both of these cases because they feature extraordinary individuals: one wrote with a
physical disability and the other wrote with an unusual writing tool. Yet as a
connoisseur and a witness the author verifies their ability in calligraphy on behalf of
the anonymous community. Here, it is worth noting a difference between the
248 The author might be referring by Ada Muharebesi to the Ottoman war against Venice in the
Peleponnese between 1715-1717. See Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman
Empire 1300-1923 (London: John Murray, 2005), 336-337.
249 “[B]u fakîr dahi gerek hattın gerek ma’ârif-i sâiresin görüp, ricâl-i ahbâb ile dâhil-i Devhatü’lküttâb
kılındı.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 128.
250 “Bu fakîr celîs-nâdî-i kerrûbî-enîsleri oldukça kalem-i merkūme ile bir nokta vaz’ı mümkün
olmayıp muhâl olduğu tecrübe ve müşâhede olunurdu. Lâkin [kendi] dest-i mübâreklerinde kā’ide-i
mergūbe üzerine kitâbetleri temâşâ beyâna hayret verir idi.” Ibid., 170.
110
biographical dictionaries of poets and calligraphers in terms of their order of
presentation. In the individual entries, biographical dictionaries of poets generally
begin with the biography and then give an example of the biographee’s poetic output.
But, since it was impractical to include an exemplary calligraphy work of a
calligrapher in a biographical dictionary in manuscript form,, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed
Necib occasionally intervenes in the text to prove the ability of the person in the eyes
of his readers.
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib frequently stresses his role as a witness and a
connoisseur in the biographical entries of the people whom he met in Egypt. He went
to the city of Rosetta (Reşid) as a judge and there he met with many people who
were interested in calligraphy.251 In the biographical entries of individuals from
Egypt he remarks that he examined (müşâhede, temâşâ) their works. These remarks
serve to confirm the reader on their talent in calligraphy again. It might be argued
that since he wrote for an Istanbulite readership who did not have the same
opportunity to meet with individuals interested in calligraphy in Egypt and to
evaluate their works, he plays the role of a connoisseur. For example, after the author
introduced Nakkâş Ahmed Efendi who was a slave of Selim Bey, a governor in
Egypt (ümerâ-i Mısır’dan Selim bey), and was trained by Cezâirî Hüseyin Efendi in
sülüs and nesih scripts in Cairo, he again situates himself as a witness and
connoisseur in order to convince the reader in Nakkâş Ahmed Efendi’s talent: “This
humble man saw [Nakkâş Ahmed Efendi’s] calligraphy work, which is on the
251 For some of these individuals see the biographical entries for Ahmed Efendi, İsmâil el-Mısrî, Bahrî
Mehmed Çelebi, Bosnevî Osman Efendi, Süleyman Efendi, Abdullah Efendi in Ibid., 78, 86, 95, 96,
171, 219-220.
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pleasant pavilion of Zülfikar Bey. Nakkâş Ahmed Efendi inscribed onto the pavilion
a poem about Zülfikar Bey by Alemî Ahmed Efendi, the previous judge of Cairo.
The style of calligraphy is praiseworthy. He is a distinguished calligrapher.”252 In a
similar vein, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib writes that he added an entry about
Abdullah Efendi, who was known as Tezkireci in the divan of Cairo during the reign
of Mahmud I, after seeing his works: “I had a meeting with him in the city of Cairo
and saw his respected works and thus, an entry on him was recorded in the
miscellany. It is certain that he was a swift scribe (kâtib) and a venerable person.”253
In this way, the author’s role in the text becomes multifaceted. In my opinion,
the instances that show the author as a witness and a connoisseur do not provide him
the role of an authority or critic in the modern sense. In fact, his own figuration as a
witness and connoisseur might be interpreted in parallel to his own purpose to
represent himself as part of the network of the people interested in calligraphy. The
way he posits himself as a witness and connoisseur serves to represent himself as a
person who knows the language and criteria of the community. Moreover, the text
praises being a person who has the capacity to discern and distinguish the talents of
someone in calligraphy and the value of a work.
252 “Bu fakîr Mısır-ı Kahire’de merhûm Zülfikâr Bey hakkında sâbıkan Kahire-i Mısır Kadısı Alemî
Ahmed Efendi [Hazretleri]nin inşâdları olan kasîde-i nazîdelerin celî müsennâ hat ile tâhrir ve nukūş-ı
dil-pezîrleri mîr-i mûmâileyhin binâ eylediği hânesindeki kasr-ı ra’nâda temâşâ eyledim. Tarîka-i
memdûha üzere yazmış[lardır.] Güzîde hattâttır.” Ibid., 330.
253 “Bu fakîrle Kahire-i Mısır’da görüşülüp, eser-i mu’teberleri müşâhedemiz olmakla zîver-i
mecmû’a kılındı. Hakkā ki kâtib-i serî’ü’l-kalem, zât-ı muhteremdir.” Ibid., 246.
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3.4 The sources of Devhatü’l-Küttâb: Friends and books
While writing his biographical dictionary Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib used several
sources of information and he refers them explicitly. The preface where the author
discusses the creation of the Pen and the alphabet of Devhatü’l-Küttâb is full of
names of various books.254 In the biographical entries of the old masters he mentions
that he took the information from Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân or Gülzâr-ı Savâb. Yet, as I
mentioned, the majority of the people whose biographies are narrated had lived
during the reigns of Ahmed III and Mahmud I. Thus, most of the people in the text
lived during the lifetime of the author. Rather than written sources, the author refers
mainly to oral sources of information that apparently helped him to write the
biographical entries of some people that he did not know personally. Sometimes he
mentions his own acquaintanceship of the people or their works; sometimes he uses
his friends as sources of information on another person. It is noticeable that the
author had a personal relationship with the majority of the individuals in the text. He
does not state his acquaintanceship with every individual in each entry. Yet, if he
does not know the individual he says that he got the information from another person
and puts a note concerning the reliability of the information.
For example at the end of the biographical entry of Hıfzi Ahmed Çelebi he
notes that “an entry [on Hıfzi Ahmed Çelebi] was added according to the description
254 Some of the books are as follows: Zühretü’r-riyâz, İmam Suyûtî’s Muhâdarât, Kitabü’l-Hey’etü’s-
Sünniye and Ma’rifetü’l-Evâil, Tefsîr-i Celaleyn, Taşköprüzâde’s Mevzû’ât. See Ibid., 46-58.
113
of his master [Râsim Mehmed Efendi].”255 He got the information about Alîmî
Kāsım Efendi who lived during the reign of Murad IV from Çavuşlar Kâtibizâde
Refî’ Mehmed Efendi (d. 1769) and he remarks its accuracy.256 On the other hand,
sometimes the author explains the reason why he left one of the biographical entries
very short and deficient with his inability to find enough information about the
person. For example, Osman Efendi’s biography is very short compared to the others
and only states that he was from Sarajevo and that he learnt sülüs and nesih from
Rodosî İbrâhim Efendi. The author explains the shortness of the entry as follows:
“Since this much has been learned from his companions, it is inappropriate to
venture to say more about him, and thus his entry has been added into Devhatü’lküttâb
in this way.”257
Thus, by way of intervening into the text in order to reveal his sources of
information and their accuracy the author tries to demonstrate the reliability of his
biographical dictionary. At the same time, it is understood that face-to-face
relationships and familiarities determine the world and network of people interested
in calligraphy that Devhatü’l-Küttâb portrays.258 Devhatü’l-Küttâb presents a
255 “[Ü]stâdları [mezbûr Efendi] [Râsim Mehmed Efendi] ta’rîfiyle es-siyâde-i Devhatü’l-küttâb
kılındı.” Ibid., 133.
256 “[Çavuşlar] Kâtibizâde Refî’ Mehmed Efendi’den menkūl ve ahbâr-ı sahîhaları makbûl olmakla
merhûm-i merkūm dâhil-i Devhatü’l-küttâb kılındı.” Ibid., 238. For another individuals whose
information were got from others by the author see the biographical entries for Ahmed el-Hüseynî,
Hamdi Seyyid Mehmed Efendi, Hândân Mehmed, Halil Ağa, Şuğlî Ahmed Çelebi, Ganîzâde Efendi,
Feyzi Efendi in Ibid., 88, 132, 137, 139, 186, 252, 253.
257 “Şürekâsından hallerine bu kadarca ıttılā’-ı tahsîlinden nâşî beyhûde tafsîle cesâret olunmayıp
dâhil-i Devhatü’l-küttâb kılınmaya revâ görüldü.” Ibid., 232. Also see the biographical entries for
Revnakî Çelebi and Samancızâde Hüseyin Efendi in Ibid., 150 and 197.
258 Altok makes the same comment on Âşık Çelebi’s biographical dictionary of poets. She also
observes that Meşâ’irü’ş-Şu’arâ depicts a community which comprises of Ottoman administrative and
114
network that comprises of people who have relationships with each other and who
come from various backgrounds.
In the preface of Devhatü’l-Küttâb, the author Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib
announces that one of his friends, İsmâil Efendi who was the accountant of the Gate
of Felicity (muhâsib-âğâ-yı Bâbü’s-sa’âde), encouraged him to write a text by
stating “a treatise that comprises of the skilled writers of sülüs, nesih, rikā’, reyhânî,
muhakkak, nesta’lîk, celî and dîvânî would be nice.”259 İsmâil Efendi suggested
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib to write a zayl [a continuation] to Gülzâr-ı Savâb which
will cover the pleasant writers (hoş-nüvîsân) who lived after the compilation of it by
Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi (d. 1060/1650-51).260
As a result Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib wrote one of the most
comprehensive biographical dictionaries of calligraphers in the Ottoman Empire. It
covers the life stories of 500 people. (Table 3) Among these people almost 350 of
them lived between the years 1650 and 1740s.261 Thus the author mostly covers the
biographies of people who were either his contemporaries or near contemporaries.
Among the people who lived between 1650 and 1740s, 84 of them worked in the
bureaucratic circles, 81 of them were members of the ulema (besides scholars and
religious elites and thus, portrays a network of elites. She states that the world portrayed by Aşık
Çelebi is defined by face-to-face relations and represents a limited facet of poetry and its practice.
Altok, “Âşık Çelebi ve Edebî Kanon,” 125.
259 “[H]oş-nüvîsân-ı hatt-ı sülüs ve nesih ve rikā’ ve reyhânî ve muhakkak ve nesta’lîk ve celî ve
dîvânîyi müştemil ve hâvî bir risâle-i cemîle olup [.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb,
43.
260 Ibid., 43.
261 Here and now I will refer to approximate numbers. I am not able to give the exact dates and
numbers because the author does not mention the date of birth and death exactly for all the
individuals. Yet, it is possible to understand in which period the individuals might lived because of the
names of the patrons or the sultans indicated in the biographical entries.
115
judges, there exist 13 imams) and 40 were from the administrative and palace elites.
57 appear as instructors of calligraphy (24 independent calligraphy instructors, 19
instructors at the palace, 13 instructors at Qur’an schools). Almost 115 people are
identified merely with the multitude of their writings, not with any other profession.
There exist 7 janissaries, 4 slaves, 3 booksellers and 2 traders.
When the calligraphers in the Devhatü’l-Küttâb are compared to those in the
previous two biographical dictionaries of calligraphers two major differences are
noticeable. First, neither Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân nor Gülzâr-ı Savâb contains
biographies of individuals who came from varied social and professional
backgrounds. Even if they came from various backgrounds the authors did not record
it clearly in the way Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib did. And second, Devhatü’l-Küttâb
differs in the way it situates the skills in calligraphy within the life stories of these
individuals who are coming from various backgrounds. The representation of skills
in calligraphy is very much related to the transformation of the representation of the
calligrapher in the three biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. As I discussed in
the previous chapter, Devhatü’l-Küttâb represents a more diversified worldly and
corporeal context for calligraphy by highlighting the different positions of skills in
calligraphy in the life and career of a person. Here, I will try to concretize and
contextualize what I have argued in the previous chapters.
116
3.5 The representation of the members of the administrative and bureaucratic circles
In contrast to the old scholarship, which defines the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries as a period of decline and which overlooks the structural transformations in
the bureaucratic, administrative and judicial establishments, the revisionist
historiography tends to show the changing dynamics of the state and its mechanisms
in the early modern world. According to the studies on the institutional history of
bureaucracy, in parallel to the expansion of the government during the seventeenth
century offices moved out of the palace to new headquarters, numbers of the scribes
increased and this growth caused an increase in hierarchization and upward
mobility.262 While guild-like patterns of recruitment were adopted by lower scribal
ranks, higher scribal officials gained the opportunity to reach higher posts that had
been previously dominated by the slave-military elite.263 The rise of scribes to high
political offices has been conceptualized as “the civilianization of government.”264 In
this regard, the political cadres of the state transited from the people of the sword
(seyfiyye) to the people of the pen (kalemiyye).265 Christoph K. Neumann points to
the influence gained by the bureaucrats in the eighteenth century in contrast to their
262 Carter V. Findley, “Political culture and the great households” in The Later Ottoman Empire,
1603-1839, ed. Suraiya N. Faroqhi, vol.3 of The Cambridge History of Turkey, ed. I. Metin Kunt
(Cmabridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 70-71. Also see Ekin Emine Tuşalp Atiyas,
“Political Literacy and the Politics of Eloquence: Ottoman Scribal Community in the Seventeenth
Century” (Unpublished PhD. diss., Harvard University, 2013), 4.
263 Findley, “Political culture and the great households,” 71. Tuşalp Atiyas, “Political Literacy and the
Politcs of Eloquence,” 4.
264 Ibid., 71.
265 Tuşalp Atiyas argues that Rami Mehmed exemplifies this transition as being the first chief scribe
who becomes the grand vizier. Ibid. 71.
117
existence as an ordinary branch of the state apparatus in the previous centuries.266 He
defines the eighteenth century as “an age of the ‘men of the pen’ (kalemiyye)”
because most of the Ottoman politicians of the age were coming from scribal
backgrounds.267
The historical context for the emergence of the “men of the pen” as important
political figures is examined in a recently completed PhD. thesis by Ekin Emine
Tuşalp Atiyas. Tuşalp Atiyas’ thesis opens up various vistas to have a better
understanding of Devhatü’l-Küttâb and the scribal world that it portrays. In her
thesis, rather than the institutional history of bureaucracy, the cultural zone of the
scribal community in the making appears as a significant issue.268 She states that the
studies focusing on the Ottoman imperialization process present “an account of an
ever-perfecting patrimonial bureaucracy” and render the scribe as the most
elementary figure of “bureaucratic machine.”269 Yet, the evolution and
transformation of the scribal world and culture are poorly understood.
The penholders or scribes began to assert themselves much more deliberately
as an intellectual and political community 1650s onwards.270 Tuşalp Atiyas’ thesis
266 Christoph K. Neumann, “Political and diplomatic developments” in The Later Ottoman Empire,
1603-1839, ed. Suraiya N. Faroqhi, vol.3 of The Cambridge History of Turkey, ed. I. Metin Kunt
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 54.
267 Ibid., 54.
268 She argues that the transformations in the bureaucratic structure and scribal culture at the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were overlooked in the current scholarship. And, she examines
the reasons of the lack of studies concerning the cultural world of the scribes. See Tuşalp Atiyas,
“Political Literacy and the Politic of Eloquence,” 6-7.
269 Ibid., 27.
270 Ibid., 27.
118
marks a “scribal turn” in politics in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries as a result of various cultural and political transformations.271 An
elementary sign of this scribal turn is the representation of scribes as a community
best fit to run the empire in various sources. The addition of the skills in eloquence
(belāgāt) and articulateness (fasāhat) to the intellectual accomplishments of the
scribal community is another sign.272
Devhatü’l-Küttâb appears as an important source that delineates the cultural
zone of the scribes of the Ottoman bureaucracy. There we find scribes from various
ranks of the bureaucracy and generally their biographical entries emphasize similar
points. To begin with, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib emphasizes the career lines of
these people. In some biographical entries the education process and the names of
masters become secondary besides the career line of the person, and sometimes are
not even mentioned clearly. Most of the time the author specifies the script type in
which a given calligrapher-scribe excelled and sometimes he clearly makes a
connection between the calligrapher-scribe’s profession and that script type. The
person’s knowledge of poetry or music and his skills in prose writing are remarked
too. Also, one of the characteristics that the author highlights for the people from
bureaucratic circles is the eloquence and articulateness/subtlety of meaning of their
prose writings. For this reason, most of the people are identified with words such as
prose writer (münşî), eloquent (fasih), articulate (beliğ) and litterateur (edib). It is
noticeable that eloquence and articulateness are introduced as characteristics
271 Ibid., 9.
272 Ibid., 131.
119
belonging only to the administrative and bureaucratic elites and the members of the
religious establishment. Neither imams, nor instructors or the people who are
identified merely with the multitude of their writings are praised for their eloquence
and articulateness. It might be concluded that eloquence and articulateness in
language and by extension, skills in prose writing had a prominent place in the
cultural milieu of the members of administrative, bureaucratic and religious
establishments. For a better understanding of the author’s portrayal and identification
of these people, it is necessary to expose how Tuşalp Atiyas scrutinizes the place of
these skills within the scribal culture of the period.273
She claims that as significant terms in Arabic literary criticism, eloquence
and articulateness “became an integral part of the education of the scribes, since they
governed the field of prose writing.”274 Accordingly, in Devhatü’l-Küttâb we find
many instances where the author praises an individual for his skills in prose writing
and his eloquence and articulateness. For example the author describes Hıfzı
Mehmed Efendi who served as the chief scribe in the Istanbul customs (İstanbul
Gümrüğü başkitâbeti) as “a prose writer who adorns eloquence (münşî-i belâğat-
273 In this context, she discusses the Münazara-ı Tığ u Kalem (The Flyting of the Sword and the Pen)
written in 1683 by the director of finances of İstanbul and its vicinities (şıkk-ı sâlis defterdârı)
Bosnavî Mehmed Şa’banzâde Efendi (d. 1708-1709). According to her the significance of this text
originates from the way it portrays the scribes (katibân) as an intellectual community by way of
referring to their rhetorical skills. Scribes are represented as people who not only secured “the
continuity of the Ottoman state and institutions, but through their mastery over eloquence (belagat)
and purity (fasahat) in language, made intellectual life possible in the Ottoman Empire Ibid., 134-135.
274 Ibid., 135. For a historical analysis on the integration of eloquence and articulateness into prose
writing in the Islamic intellectual traditions and in the seventeenth century Ottoman literature see
Ibid., 138-161.
120
pîrâ), [and] a poet with an excellent style (şâ’ir-i pâkize-edâ)”275 Râkım el-Hâcc
Mehmed Efendi who was in the positions of the accountant of Anatolia (Muhâsebe-i
Anadolu) and the director of the registry of landed properties (defter emâneti) during
the reign of Mahmud I is identified by the author as “the distinguished one among
the eloquent poets and the admired one among the articulate litterateurs in the
science of prose writing.”276 The author describes Behçet Mehmed Efendi who was
the private secretary of the finance minister (defterdâr) during the reign of Mahmud I
as “[one] whose poetry and prose writing are admitted by all, and whose knowledge
on various subjects and pleasant writing are ornament of his style; he is unique
among his contemporaries, articulate, litterateur, talented and knowledgeable about
the affairs of religion and state.”277 Not only the members of the upper echelons of
the bureaucracy but also those from the lower echelons are praised for their skills in
eloquence and articulateness.
The collective representation of scribes as an intellectual community whose
members were equipped with certain discursive tools is not a coincidence when we
consider the historical context of the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the
eighteenth centuries. The period witnessed constant warfare and hence, an increase
in diplomatic relationships that changed the role of the scribes from writers of
275 “[M]ünşî-i belâğat-pîrâ, şâ’ir-i pâkize-edâ [.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb,
126.
276 “[Ş]u’arâ-yı belâğat –şi’ârın güzîdesi ve fenn-i inşâda üdebâ-yı fesâhatkârın pesendîdesi [.]” Ibid.,
158.
277 “Şi’r ü inşâ müsellim-i tab’-ı muhteremleri ma’ârif-i sâire ve kitâbet-i fâhire zînet-i kalem-i
muhteremleri, akrânı nâdir, belîğ ve edîb ve mâhir, müsteşâr-ı dîn ü devlet [.]”Ibid., 100.
121
accounts of conquest to “negotiators and treaty makers.”278 Thus, it might be said
that scribal skills in prose writing, correct phrasing and preparation of documents
were in high demand. Within this context the eloquence and articulateness happened
to be tools of scribes and are referred for their intellectual and political functions.
The narration of the biographies of Ahmed Paşa and Emînî Mehmed Bey are
illustrative. It is striking that these two individuals who participated in diplomatic
negotiations with foreign states were praised for their skills both in calligraphy, prose
writing and for the eloquence and articulateness of their language. The biography of
Ahmed Paşa who was from Iraq and had the penname of Ârifî goes as follows:
After he held the positions of chancellor and chief scribe, which are
among the distinguished offices of the Imperial Council, he was
entrusted with the task of determining borders during the Austrian peace
treaty. After he completed his job, the sultan honored him by granting
him the rank of vizierate and other ranks. Later on, he was distinguished
by being appointed commander-in-chief of Revan in Iran. The aforesaid
excellency is both wise and learned, knowledgeable about the intricacies
of calligraphy, and proficient in the science of musical theory; he is a
delicate prose stylist, and an eloquent poet, and is talented in every kind
of script type, but especially outshines his contemporaries in the divani
script.”279
In the biography of Emînî Mehmed Bey, who served as the private secretary and
steward (kethüda) of the vizier İbrâhim Paşa, the private secretary of the clerk of the
vizier (mektubî-i sadr-ı âlî halîfesi), private secretary of the director of the registry of
278 Tuşalp Atiyas, “Political Literacy and the Politics of Eloquence,” 189-190.
279 “[H]idemât-ı makbûle-i dîvâniyyeden nişânî ve reîsü’l-küttâb olduktan sonra Nemçe
Musâlahası’nda sınır kat’ı umûruna dahi me’mûr ve avdetinde avâtıf-ı aliyye-i şehriyârîden rütbe-i
vezârete irtifâ’ ile bekâm ve mesrûr ve nice menâsıb-ı celîle ihrâz ve zabtıyla imtiyâz bulup, [ba’dehu]
diyâr-ı İran’da Revan Seraskerliği ile ser-efrâz olmuşlardır. Müşârünileyh hazretleri sâhib-i kemâl ve
ma’ârif ve dekāyık-ı hutûta ârif ve mâlik-i mülk-i fenn-i edvâr, münşî-i nâzik-edâ, efsah-ı şu’arâ-yı
dâna ve aklâm-mend olanın her birinde mâhir, lâkin hatt-ı dîvânîde akrânı nâdir olup [.]” Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 87.
122
landed properties (mektubî-i emîn-i defter-i hâkānî), the Moscow ambassador
(Moskov’a elçilikle me’bûs), and head accountant (başmuhâsebe), similar abilities
are highlighted:
During his years as student, he was good at sülüs, nesih, talik and
especially divani scripts; he has few peers in poetry and prose writing.
He is capable of Qur’anic exegesis and the [study of] hadiths. He is
famous for his many odes and works of rare eloquence in the three
languages [i.e., Arabic, Persian and Turkish].280
Likewise, we learn that after Nazîf Mustafa Efendi became a master scribe (hâcegân)
and reached some other positions, he was ordered to join the diplomatic mission that
was sent to the shah of Iran by Mahmud I. The author remarks that Nazîf Mustafa
Efendi was also responsible for the preparation and completion of the treaty that was
sent to the shah: “He was commissioned with the preparation of the imperial edict
and joined the envoy that was sent to the Iran shah. He returned after conducting the
negotiations and concluding the treaty in accordance with the wishes of the public
and the Sublime State.”281 In return for his service to the state, the sultan gave him a
sable coat and the position of the accountant of Anatolia (Anadolu muhâsebesi).
Nazîf Mustafa Efendi’s skills in prose writing and in nesih and divani scripts are
emphasized, too.282
280 “Hâl-i taleblerinde sülüs ve nesih ve ta’lîkte, husûsan dîvânîde hattât ve şi’r ü inşâda akrânı nâdir,
ferîdü’l-asr, tefsîre kādir ve ehâdîse me’zûn, sâhib-i me’âsir, elsine-i selasede kasîde-i nazîde ve âsâr-ı
belîgāne-i nâdîde ile şöhre-i âlemyân, zât-ı âlî-şândır.” Ibid., 89.
281 “Şâh-ı İran tarafına nâme-i Hümâyûn ve sefâret ile ba’s ü irsâl olunup ‘âmme-i nâs ve vükelâ-yı
Devlet-i Aliyye’nin murâdı ve marzîleri üzere musâlahayı mukâleme [ve itmâm] ve emr-i
musâlahanın tekmîline temessükler ile avdet edip [.]” Ibid., 321.
282 Vassâf Abdullah Efendi was also responsible in the embassy that was sent to the Iran shah. Besides
the eloquence and articulateness of his language his skills in poetry, prose writing and calligraphy are
emphasized. For his biographical entry see Ibid., 334.
123
In the above-mentioned three examples skills in prose writing and in
calligraphy are represented in connection with the service of diplomacy. Thus,
besides the eloquence and articulateness skills in calligraphy are represented
throughout the text as an important component of the newly identified intellectual
content of the scribal community. In a similar vein to the eloquence and
articulateness which are identified as discursive tools of scribes by Tuşalp Atiyas,
calligraphy was another tool that had intellectual and political functions for the
scribal community. In order to have a better understanding of the role of skills in
calligraphy for the individuals working in the bureaucracy other kinds of sources
than the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers like calligraphic or alphabetic
exercises (müfredât) should be examined (see Appendix B, Figures 30 and 31). In
this way, the functions of calligraphy for the people acting as negotiators, and what
kind of a role the calligraphy played in the international affairs and cross-cultural
concerns of the state might be uncovered.
3.6 The representation of the members of the religious establishment
Devhatü’l-Küttâb also narrates the life stories of various ulema. The ulema covered
consist not just of scholars and judges, but also of more peripheral members of the
ulema like mosque preachers or imams. But the author’s attitude towards the higher
and lower echelons of the religious establishment differs. The biographical entries of
scholars and judges are more detailed; they emphasize the career line and describe a
wide are of expertise which comprises of poetry, prose writing, eloquence and
124
articulateness in general. In contrast, the biographical entries of imams and preachers
are shorter, emphasize the educational role of the individuals and are almost devoid
of reference to any other skills than calligraphy. The biographical entries written for
the members of the administrative and bureaucratic circles and of the upper echelons
of the religious establishment do not display a serious difference in terms of
structure. The same career-focused approach of the author is obvious in the
biographical entries devoted to the high-ranking ulema.
Madeline C. Zilfi draws attention to the increasing focus on career lines in the
Ottoman biographical dictionaries from the late seventeenth century onwards. She
argues that rather than scholarly activities, bureaucratic honors became the markers
of achievements in the texts (especially in the biographical dictionaries) written by
members of the ulema. According to her, because of the existing focus on the career
lines the texts do not refer to the literary output and scholarly achievements of the
scholars. She finds the remarks on the literary output of the ulema in the biographical
dictionaries insufficient.283 Devhatü’l-Küttâb, however, clearly does not fit this
generalization. It gives reference to the career lines, scholarly achievements and
literary output of the members of the religious establishment. In a similar vein to the
members of the bureaucratic establishment, members of the upper echelons of the
religious establishment are praised for their skills in calligraphy, the composition of
high prose and the eloquence and articulateness of their language. In other words,
283 Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Ottoman Ulema” in The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839, ed. Suraiya N.
Faroqhi, vol.3 of The Cambridge History of Turkey, ed. I. Metin Kunt (Cmabridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 209-226.
125
these skills are not represented as being exclusive to the members of the bureaucratic
and administrative establishments.
There is reason to think that Devhatü’l-Küttâb’s discussion of ulema in this
connection was reflective of the social realities. Christine Woodhead draws attention
to the multidimensional development of the Ottoman prose writing style and the role
played by members of both the bureaucratic and religious establishments in it.284 She
relates the development of the Ottoman prose writing style, first, with the texts
produced for the training of the chancery scribes in the late fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries such as the “manuals of diplomatic style, collections of exemplars and form
letters” and second, with the usage of prose writing style by the members of the
ulema in the texts that they produced such as histories and examples of didactic
literature.285 The members of the religious establishment started to be acknowledged
as masters of prose writing style by the early seventeenth century.286
In this fashion, skills in prose writing constitute a prominent part of the
representation of the ulema in Devhatü’l-Küttâb. For example Rûhi Mustafa Efendi,
a scholar who worked as the private secretary of Mehmed Emin Efendi who was the
the chief physcian of the palace (reîsü’l-etībbâ-i şehriyârî) of Mahmud I and the
previous chief military judge, is praised for his skills in prose writing. He is
identified as a prose writer and eloquent.287 The judge of Damascus Parsa Sabır
284 Christine Woodhead, “Circles of Correspondence: Ottoman letter-writing in the early seventeenth
century,” Journal of Turkish Literature 4 (2007), 56.
285 Ibid., 56.
286 Ibid., 56.
287 Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 157.
126
Mehmed Efendizâde Abdülbâki Efendi (d. 1733) is identified as “eloquent in poetry
and prose writing.”288 The scholar Vassaf Hüseyin Efendi’s biographical entry
emphasizes his skills in prose writing and identifies him as “one of the famous and
great eloquents.”289 The entry also states that after he became the head of the office
issuing fetvas (fetvâ emîni), with the order of the sultan, he was sent to Isfahan to
accompany Kara Mehmed Paşazade who became an envoy there after the completion
of the treaty between the two states.
The biographical entry about the scholar Hanif İbrahim Efendi gives many
references to his skills in various subjects and his literary output. Another person
whose works were praised by the ulema as the author states is Seyyid Mustafa
Efendi. His commentary on Şifa-yı Kadı İyaz is celebrated as an eloquent and
articulate prose work.290 It is also recorded that his work was accepted to Mahmud
I’s library as an act of reverence.291 In Seyyid Hüseyin Efendi’s biographical entry
the practice of mülâzemet appears. During his mülazemet the judge La’lizâde
Abdülbâki Efendi copied books like Tefsir-i Celâleyn, Tefsir-i Kadı and İshak Hocası
Burusevi Ahmed Efendi’s Mukaddimetü’l-Edeb.292 He was also famous for the other
kütüb-i nefise that he wrote for the nobles of the age. He later on became a judge in
288 “[F]esahatgâh-ı şi’r ü inşâ [.]” Ibid., 98.
289 “[B]elîğ-i bülegā-i bülend-iştihâr [.]” Ibid., 334.
290 “Bir inşâ-yı ra’nâ-yı celîl ve bir eser-i bî-hemtâ-yı cemîldir ki, her satırı birer sünbül-i bâğ-ı cennet
ve her harfi birer gevher-i yek-tâ-yı ummân-ı fazl ü belâgattır.” Ibid., 130.
291 “Şehenşâh-ı cem-câh Hazretleri kemâl-i ta’zîm-birle vaz’-ı kütüphâne-i kabûl buyurup tekrîm
olunmuşlardır.” Ibid. 130.
292 Ibid., 169.
127
Anatolia. Seyyid Hüseyin Efendi’s skills in calligraphy are represented as an asset
that enabled him to reach higher positions.
3.7 Calligraphy as a gentlemanly activity
Calligraphic skills are mentioned in a very similar way in the life stories of people
from the bureaucratic and administrative cadres and the religious establishment.
These people showed expertise not just in calligraphy, but also a variety of other
fields such as prose writing, poetry, eloquence and articulateness. In the portrayal of
people from both groups skills in calligraphy are represented as one of the
components of their intellectual identities. In a similar vein, Philippe Bora Keskiner
argues by giving reference to Devhatü’l-Küttâb that during the reign of Ahmed III
calligraphy became a part of the image of the Ottoman administrative and
bureaucratic elite.293 In fact, it could be argued that the ideal cultured person of the
period had knowledge and skills in a wide variety of fields, not just calligraphy. In
this regard, it is telling that Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib often attributes his subjects’
decision to learn calligraphy to a desire to “improve the faculty for arts” (zamîme-i
ma’ârifetleri olmak için). This phrase is frequently used in the biographical entries of
people from the upper echelons of bureaucratic, administrative and ulema circles. In
addition to its usage in the above-mentioned entries some other examples might be
given. In the biographical entry of Râtib Ahmed Paşa who was among the
293 Philippe Bora Keskiner, “Sultan Ahmed III (r.1703-1730) as a Calligrapher and Patron of
Calligraphy,” (Unpublished PhD. Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2012), 82-83. Keskiner does
not explain the way calligraphy became an important component of the identity of the members of the
religious establishment too.
128
administrative elites, skills in calligraphy are situated within his wide area of
expertise. The author mentions first that Râtib Ahmed Paşa had an education in
various fields and he had composed enough poetry to form a divan before he became
twenty. The author also adds that the eloquence and articulateness of his prose
writing had become famous among people and he had learnt talik and divani scripts
from Râsim Mehmed Efendi in order to “improve his faculty for arts.”294 The author
uses the same phrase in the biographical entry of Âtıf Mustafa Efendi who was the
Imperial Register (defterdâr-ı evvel) during the reign of Mahmud I. He learnt
calligraphy in order to “improve his faculty for arts.” Besides his skills in writing he
is described as an individual who was good at poetry and prose writing, among the
eloquent ones and knowledgeable about the affairs of religion and state (müsteşâr-ı
dîn ü devlet).295 It is noticeable that these biographies belong to members of the
Ottoman elite. In contrast to the biographies of low-ranking scribes or calligraphers
whose profession is not mentioned, in the biographical entries of the elites, skills in
calligraphy are related as one among many other areas of expertise and thus, as a
gentlemanly activity. According to the author’s narration they learnt calligraphy to
enhance their knowledge. For the people among the Ottoman elite there is no
indication of a professionalization in relation to calligraphy. Calligraphy is not
represented as their only tool to reach higher positions, but rather as one of many
such means and as a component of their broader intellectual and cultural formation.
294 “[Z]amîme-i ma’ârifetleri olmak için [.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 153.
295 Ibid., 239.
129
Keskiner specifies the reign of Ahmed III as a period in which members of
the ruling class and high-ranking officials practiced and promoted calligraphy.296 He
argues that this phenomenon was very much related to Ahmed III’s self-promotion as
the “calligrapher-ruler” and the imitation of his artistry and patronage of calligraphy
by the ruling and bureaucratic elite.297 He claims that
[a]n increasing number of calligraphers were also employed as
bureaucrats, which can be seen as a systematic bureaucratization of
calligraphy. With this political occurrence, the status of calligraphers
reached new heights and members of the upper classes were keen to
practice calligraphy. Unlike earlier periods, calligraphers could also be
trained under the supervision and patronage of powerful households of
Paşas and muftis, who were able to promote calligraphic circles
independent of the royal scriptorium.298
I agree with Keskiner that the practice of calligraphy gained greater prestige among
the Ottoman elite. In contrast to the earlier biographical dictionaries, in Devhatü’l-
Küttâb we see more people from the upper levels of society as being interested in
and promoting calligraphy. Yet, I find his conceptualization “bureaucratization of
calligraphy” quite vague. He explains that with the employment of calligraphers as
bureaucrats a process of “bureaucratization of calligraphy” realized. His statement
implies that the people that he defined as bureaucrats were in fact calligraphers or got
an education to become professional calligraphers. According to his perspective the
increase in the prestige of calligraphy provide the calligraphers to got higher
positions in the state cadres.
296 Keskiner, “Sultan Ahmed III (r.1703-1730) as a Calligrapher and Patron of Calligraphy,” 79.
297 Ibid., 79.
298 Ibid., 80.
130
Yet, in Devhatü’l-Küttâb calligraphy is not a field only within the interest of
the scribes in the bureaucracy or the people from the administrative elite. As I have
argued, the members of the ulema are represented as giving importance to the
calligraphic knowledge. Most of the judges and scholars appear as prominent figures
in the community of religious establishment with their skills in calligraphy. In this
regard, rather than conceptualizing this phenomenon as “bureaucratization of
calligraphy”, a wider approach on the increasing importance of calligraphy should be
developed. Although it is difficult to make such an approach by only one source, that
is Devhatü’l-Küttâb, at least it is fair to argue that to own a beautiful handwriting
was an acknowledged and prestigious skill in the eyes of the Ottomans living
between 1650s and 1750s. It is true that the same skill is praised in the earlier written
sources of calligraphy but Devhatü’l-Küttâb is a peculiar early example that shows
the popularization of this phenomenon in a wider scale of the early modern Ottoman
society.
3.8 Script type as an identity ma(r)ker
Since the text shows the functions and understanding of calligraphy on a wider scale,
an opportunity arises to understand if there was a relationship between the script
types and social groups. In certain instances calligraphy signalled the social group to
which a person belongs. A professionalization and compartmentalization of certain
script types appear among the social groups that Devhatü’l-Küttâb covers. There is a
certain differentiation between divani, talik and nestalik scripts. While divani script
131
is reserved for the members of the administration and bureaucracy, talik and nestalik
scripts are reserved for the members of the ulema.299 Since no study has examined
this differentiation in the Ottoman world at large, it is difficult to examine its
representation in Devhatü’l-Küttâb. It is true that talik script had been used in the
kadı courts and divani had been used in the Imperial Council for a long period of
time. But I think it is more than a mere reflection of the already existing areas of
usage of the scripts. For example, as Tuşalp Atiyas draws our attention, in his work
Hulasa-ı İnşa300 Rami Mehmed Efendi explains that different types of scripts should
be used for addressing different ranks of recipients: “A correspondence between
commoners (‘avam) and viziers were to be written in hatt whereas letters dispatched
between the members of the ‘ulema were to be written in talik script.”301 It is not
clear what Rami Mehmed refers to by hatt. But his emphasis on the use of talik script
in the letters dispatched between the ulema is remarkable. It might be a rule of
etiquette, a way to show reverence or only a practical issue, but it is tempting to see
here a relationship being posited between the identity or profession of the person and
the script type. Why do we see such a compartmentalization of script types according
to profession and area of function? Which historical circumstances created such a
differentiation between the divani, talik and nestalik scripts? These are questions
waiting to be answered in light of new studies that will examine new sources. But, in
299 For the development of divani script see Ali Alparslan, Osmanlı Hat Sanatı Tarihi, 191-192.
Alparslan mentions that talik was the script of the members of the religious establishment from the
reign of Mehmed II to Republican Era. See Ibid., 156.
300 Tuşalp Atiyas defines this work as “a perfect beginners’ guide for any inspiring member of the
scribal community” since it gives information on various scribal issues. See Tuşalp Atiyas, “Political
Literacy and the Politcs of Eloquence,” 249.
301 Ibid., 255.
132
my opinion, in Devhatü’l-Küttâb the remarks on the script type in which the
individual excelled plays the role of an identification marker.
Additionally, specialization in divani or talik and nestalik might have been
perceived as a sign of advanced literacy. In the Devhatü’l-Küttâb, sülüs and nesih are
often mentioned as script types that imams, instructors at the Qur’an schools, and
people of unknown profession excelled at, whereas the experts in divani, talik and
nestalik scripts were also often identified as prose writer, eloquent, articulate and
litterateur. It is understood from the biographical entries that individuals first learnt
sülüs and nesih and then studied divani, talik or nestalik. 302 In contrast to sülüs and
nesih, divani, talik and nestalik scripts are represented as scripts that are learnt as part
of a profession.
For example in the biographical entry about Râkım el-Hacc Mehmed Efendi
who held positions like the accountant of Anatolia (muhâsebe-i Anadolu) and
director of the registry of landed properties (defter emâneti) we read that he first
learnt sülüs and nesih scripts from the imam of Mirahur Mosque Seyyid Abdullah
Efendi.303 Then, his study of the divani script is related in connection with his
profession: “Since he spent much time in writing the state documents, his skill in
divani script is far better than in other scripts.”304 Ali Efendi, another student of the
302 Uğur Derman explains that during the process of calligraphy training after learning sülüs and nesih
together under the same master, talik was learnt seperately under the supervision of another master. It
shows that talik script needs specialization. See Derman, Letters in Gold, 41.
303 “[İ]mâm-ı Câmi’-i Mirâhûr Seyyid Abdullah Efendi’den vaz’-ı ketebeye me’zûn olup, sülüs ve
nesihte olan sahâyif-i âsârı bülend-iştihâr olmuştur.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb,
158.
304 “Tahrîrât-ı umûr-ı lâzime-i Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmâniyye sûret-i meşkte sebât ve metânet bulmakla
dîvânî hatları aklâm-ı sâirelerine gālib ve müreccahtır.” Ibid., 158-159.
133
imam of Mirahur Mosque, Seyyid Abdullah Efendi, first learnt sülüs, nesih and rika
from his master. His expertise in divani is also related to his profession: “Since he is
the private secretary [mektûbî] of the steward [kethüdâ] of the Grand Vizier, his
divani script is excellent.”305 Nu’mân Efendi’s skills in divani improved thanks to his
employment as a scribe to the state.306 Because of his position as a scribe in the
janissary registrar (yeniçeri kalemi) Seyyid Mehmed Nesib Efendi excelled in siyakat
and divani scripts.307 Tâlib Abdullah Efendi was praised for his skills in şikest which
he learnt while handling the affairs of the religious court: “Since he spent time with
the affairs of the religious court and wrote postscript (hamiş-i kütüb) his skills in
şikest script has become praiseworthy among the master calligraphers of the time.”308
Bosnevî Ahmed Efendi who was a member of the ulema first learnt sülüs and nesih
and then nestalik script.309 Thus, in a major difference from the previous Ottoman
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, Devhatü’l-Küttâb constructs an explicit
relationship between the script type, profession and social group.
305 “[K]ethüdâ-yı sudûr-ı âlî-şânlara mektûbî olmakla dîvânî hatları dahi kemâl-encâm olup [.]” Ibid.,
222.
306 “Hidemât-ı kitâbet-i Devlet-i Aliyye ile güzârende-i evkāt olmakla hatt-ı dîvânîleri bir dereceye
müntehî ve bir rütbeye fer ü behî vermiştir ki [.]” Ibid., 323.
307 “[Y]eniçeri kaleminde küttâb-ı zevi’l-elbâbtan olmakla şeş kalemden mâ’adâ [dahi] siyâkat ve
dîvânî [.]” Ibid., 173.
308 “Umûr-ı şeri’yyede evkāt-güzâr olmakla hâmiş-i kütüb tahrîrâtı sûret-i meşkte sebât bulmakla
vâdî-i şikestte olan hatları hoş-nüvîsân-ı asrın memdûhu olmuştur.” Ibid., 207.
309 Ibid., 92.
134
3.9 Busy with writing (Kitâbetle meşgûl): Sülüs and nesih writers
A comparison of the biographical entries written about people who excelled in sülüs
and nesih and the people who excelled in divani, talik and nestalik reveals significant
differences in the way Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib portrayed these two groups of
people. In order to understand this different treatment the notices of an observer from
the end of the seventeenth century, the chief of the scribes Rami Mehmed, on the
qualities of a scribe (kâtib) seems significant to consider. He describes as follow:
No matter what style of script he writes, a man who writes is called a
katib. Katib means writer (yazucu). If he masters calligraphy (hüsn-ü
hatt), they call him ehl-i kalem. Calligraphy, orthography and knowledge
are to be found together in a katib, yet it is difficult to find these in one
person. The scribes of nesh and sülüs scripts are often ignorant.310
It is remarkable that Rami Mehmed saw the writers of nesih and sülüs as people of
limited knowledge. According to him they do not have sufficient skills in
orthography and knowledge to be considered good katibs. Suyolcuzâde Mehmed
Necib does not make such a drastic statement about the deficiencies of the writers of
nesih and sülüs scripts as Rami Mehmed did. Yet, the content and style of his
biographical entries about sülüs and nesih writers are significantly different than the
ones written about the divani, talik and nestalik writers. In general, the biographical
entries of the former are shorter and written in simple Turkish, without extensive use
of Persianisms, rhymed prose and metaphors compared to the ones written for the
individuals among the administrative, bureaucratic and ulema circles. A specific
profession is often not mentioned for them. They are characterized especially with
310 Tuşalp Atiyas, “Political Literacy and the Politics of Eloquence,” 259.
135
multitude of manuscripts they produced, mostly Qur’ans, Delâilü’l-hayrâts, En’âms
and Evrâds they wrote. In contrast to the detailed narratives on the familial
backgrounds of the individuals among the administrative, bureaucratic and ulema
circles, their biographical entries give very short notices about their backgrounds. It
is worth to note that most of these people are not found in the main studies on the
Ottoman calligraphy. Dizdârzâde Seyyid Abdullah Çelebi’s biographical entry
illustrates the points I have raised:
He came from Kangırı (Çankırı) of Anatolia. When he came to Istanbul,
he learnt sülüs and nesih from the above-mentioned Dede İbrahim
Efendi. He became famous after he began to sign his works. He spent his
time copying Qur’ans and he succeded in writing innumerable beautiful
works.311
Another example is Osman Efendi’s biographical entry:
He is from the Boru town near Niğde, Anatolia. When he came to
Istanbul, he studied various subjects, served masters and was a good
disciple of wise men. He improved his skills in sülüs and nesih and
obtained a license to sign his works (me’zun bi’l-ketebe) from Yakup
Efendi. He is among the calligraphers who spent their time copying
Qur’ans and Delâ’ilü’l-hayrâts.312
Many other examples might be given from the text.313 As it is seen, the reader is only
informed about the city from which the individual was coming. Skills other than
311 “Anadolu’dan Kangırı (Çankırı) nâm diyârdan âşikâr olup, İstanbul’a geldiğinde merkūm Dede
İbrâhim Efendi’den sülüs ve nesihi kemâle encâm ve hatlarına nihâde-i ketebeden sonra şöhret-yâb ve
be-nâm oldular. Evkātın mesâhif-i şerîfe kitâbetiyle geçirip, bî-nihâye âsâr-ı cemîle tahrîrât-ı pürsaâdete
muvaffak olmuştur.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 144-145.
312 “Anadolu’dan Niğde Boru kasabasındandır. Âsitâne-i Aliyye’ye geldiğinde ma’rifete sâ’î ve bâb-ı
esâtizaye hidmet edip, erbâb-ı kemâli murâ’i olup, hüsn-i hatt-ı sülüs ve nesihe talebleri kemâle resîde
ve âtiyü’z-zikr Ya’kûb Efendi’den me’zûn bi’l-ketebe […]. Evkātı mesâhif-i şerîfe ve Delâ’ilü’lhayrât-
ı münîfe kitâbetiyle güzerân eden hattât-ı pür-inbisâtlardandır.” Ibid., 248.
313 For some of them see the biographical entries for Bakkalzâde Ahmed Efendi, Çömez Ahmed
Efendi, Çömez Ömer Efendi, Hatibzâde İbrâhim Efendi, Za’îfî Mehmed Efendi, Tahir İbrâhim Ağa,
Zuhûri Efendi, Ömer Efendi, Mustafa Efendi, Himmetzâde İsmâil Efendi in Ibid., 96, 113, 113, 136,
200, 203, 208, 247, 292, 342.
136
calligraphy are not mentioned for these individuals. Thus, calligraphy is not
represented as one of the many areas of expertise of the individual or as a
gentlemanly practice as it is in the biographical entries of the members of the
Ottoman elite. The author does not clearly identify these people as copyists
(müstensih); yet, he implies that they made their living by writing. There is not any
fixed pattern in their identification. They can be identified as pleasant writers (hoşnüvîsân),
busy with writing (kitâbetle meşgûl), nesih writers (nessahan), scribes
(küttâb) or calligrapher (hattat). Also it is difficult to understand how the author
perceived the aesthetic or artistic capacity of the skills of these people in calligraphy
because of his very brief notices. In order to understand the representation of these
individuals in the text, a comparison between the biographical entries written for
them and the biographical entries written for the contemporary master calligraphers
who are described by the author with a major emphasis on their ability in calligraphy
too, might be helpful.
It is obvious that the author treated the famous master calligraphers of the
period such as Hafız Osman (d.1698)314, Suyolcuzâde Mustafa Eyyubî (d. 1686)315,
Yedikuleli Seyyid Abdullah (d. 1731)316, Ağakapılı İsmail Efendi (d. 1706)317,
Eğrikapılı Mehmed Râsim (d. 1756)318, Katibzâde Mehmed Refi’ (d. 1769)319,
314 Ibid., 121-122.
315 Ibid., 193-195.
316 Ibid., 164-165.
317 Ibid., 73.
318 Ibid., 150.
137
Ressâm-ı Sikke-i Hümâyun Ömer Efendi320 in a different way (see Appendix B,
Figures 32-34). The biographical entries of these master calligraphers are longer and
more detailed. Almost all of them trained many students and throughout the
biographical dictionary their names appear frequently as masters of other individuals.
The most striking difference between the biographies of master calligraphers and the
individuals who are characterized with multitude of their writings is the author’s
description of their works. When commenting on the works of the latter group the
author either does not mention anything about the quality or is very brief. Yet, the
works of the master calligraphers are praised for their beauty. In the descriptions of
their works the author uses the prose writing style that comprises of Persianisms,
rhymed prose and metaphors. For example the handwritten texts done by
Yedikuleleli Seyyid Abdullah are described as follows: “It is known by the masters
that the delightful and charming works that he wrote for every one such as the
numerous Qur’ans, En’âms, Evrâds, kıtas and murakkas were astonishing for the one
who sees them.”321 Hafız Osman became prominent by reviving the works of the old
master Şeyh Hamdullah. The author states that, the talented people of the time were
perplexed by Hafız Osman’s outstanding style.322
319 Ibid., 155-156.
320 Ibid., 217-218.
321 “Ve kitâbet-i pür-ibretleri olan mesâhif-i müte’addide-i dünyâ-hediyye ve En’âm ve Evrâd ve
kıta’ât ve murakka’ât misillü tahrîrât-ı sâire-i latîfe-i behiyyeleri, hıyre-sâz-ı dîde-i eslâf ü ahlâf
olduğu ma’lûm-i esâtize-i ehl-i insâftır.” Ibid., 165.
322 “[T]arîka-i kâmile-i İbnü’ş-Şeyh’i ihyâ ve bir rütbede hüsn ü behcet ve şîve ve nezâket-i dil-rübâyı
hattı hüveydâ buyurdular ki müsta’iddân-ı zamanı dem-beste ve lâl eylediler.” Ibid., 121.
138
A comparison of these descriptions with the ones done for the other
individuals who are identified merely with the multitude of their writings reveals that
the author attributes uniqueness only to the writings of the master calligraphers. In
these cases, the beauty of the written works originates from the person who wrote it.
In other words, a value is attributed to the writings according to the individual who
wrote it. It might be argued that their writings had a different quality that originates
from having a distinguishable style and an aesthetic value.
In the biographical entries of the master calligraphers the names of the
patrons as recipients of their works are indicated. For example we learn that Ressâmı
Sikke-i Hümayûn Ömer Efendi, before going on pilgrimage, wrote a Qur’an as a
gift to Ahmed III and in return the sultan gave him one thousand gold coins. With the
command of Ahmed III, Yedikuleli Seyyid Abdullah Efendi wrote two Qur’ans and
one book on hadith called Meşârık, which was translated by the scholar Osmanzâde
Ahmed Efendi. A similar narrative of patronage appears in the biographical entry of
Râsim Mehmed Efendi: “He inscribed in müsenna script the dates of the fountains
and sebils which were built and renovated by the mother of His Excellency Mahmud
I in 1732-33 near Azapkapısı in Galata.”323
On the other hand, as the recipients of the works written by the people who
are characterized with the multitude of their writings an anonymous community is
mentioned as the recipients. For example Himmetzâde Mehmed Efendi’s works and
their recipients are decribed as follow: “the exquisite books written by his agreeable
323 “Vâlide-i Sultân Mahmûd Hân Hazretleri 1145 (1732-33) târihinde Galata’da Azapkapısı dâhilinde
binâ ve ihyâ buyurdukları sebîl ve çeşmelerin târihlerini hatt-ı müsennâ-yı âb-dâr ile tahrîr-i bî-adîl
buyurmuşlardır.” Ibid., 151.
139
and high hand are accepted as luminous by the wise men.”324 In a similar vein the
kıtas and writings of Ali Efendi are introduced as highly regarded by the masters of
the time.325 Additionally, we do not come across narratives of patronage in their
biographies.
This comparison suggests that the author differentiated between the two
groups in terms of the quality and aesthetic value of their calligraphy styles. In order
to understand the position of people who were described merely with the multitude
of the things they wrote within the world portrayed in Devhatü’l-Küttâb the
perspective that recent studies have introduced should be considered. In this way, the
representation of the function of calligraphy in their lives, the author’s preference to
narrate their biographies briefly, the author’s identification of these people merely
with the multitude of their writings and the frequent reference to Qur’ans, En’âms,
Evrâds and Delâ’ilü’l-hayrâts as the texts written by them might be understood
better.
İsmail E. Erünsal’s recent study on Ottoman booksellers suggests that people
in this second category may have been the suppliers of Qur’ans, En’âm, Evrâd and
Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât to the booksellers or they may have been sellers of manuscript
books themselves.326 The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a period when
324 “[K]ütüb-i nefîse-i âlü’l-âl tahrîr-i dil-pezîrleri ziyâ-güster-i uyûn-ı erbâb-ı kemâldir.” Ibid., 342.
325 “[K]ıta’ât ve kitâbetleri meşhûd-ı bâsıra-i esâtize-i deverân [.]” Ibid., 249.
326 İsmail E. Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar (İstanbul: Timaş Yayınları, 2013). Also see
Erünsal, “Osmanlılar Sahhaflık ve Sahhaflar: Yeni Bazı Belge ve Bilgiler,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları
XXIX (2007): 99-146.
140
manuscript sales went up in Istanbul.327 In the second half of the eighteenth century
there was an increase both in the numbers of probate records of booksellers and the
books in them.328 According to Erünsal, especially the commerce of Qur’an provided
important revenue for the booksellers judging by their probate records.329 There are
many items that were recorded as parts (cüz) of Qur’an in the probate records of
booksellers that Erünsal discusses. These were probably the En’âm, Evrâd and
Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât, which are mentioned as texts written by the people who are
identified by Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib with the multitude of their writing. En’âm
is the sixth surah of the Qur’an; emphasizes the tevhid belief and some practical
issues in Islam.330 Derman states that the En’âm sura and the most frequently recited
suras were composed as volumes called En’âm-ı Şerîf.331 The booklets containing
En’âm sura had elaborate writing, illumination and binding styles.332 Evrâd is like a
miscellany of prayers to be read daily.333 Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât was also a book of prayer
and it had miniatures of Mecca and Medina in it334 (see Appendix B, Figures 35 and
36). As parts of the Qur’an these texts would often have been cheaper than the
327 Ibid.,140.
328 Ibid., 158.
329 Ibid., 167.
330 For more details on the surah see Emin Işık, “En’âm Suresi” in TDVİA v.11 (İstanbul: Türkiye
Diyanet Vakfı, 1995), 169-170.
331 Derman, Letters in Gold, 26.
332 See “En’âm-ı Şerif” in Dr. Hasan Özönder, Ansiklopedik Hat ve Tezhip Sanatları Deyimleri
Sözlüğü (Konya: Nüve Kültür Merkezi, 2009), 47.
333 For more details on Evrad see Mustafa Kara,“Evrâd” in TDVİA v.11 (İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet
Vakfı, 1995), 533-535.
334 For more details on Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât see Süleyman Uludağ, “Delâilü’l-hayrât”in TDVİA v.9
(İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1994), 113-114 and Derman, Letters in Gold, 26.
141
Qur’an itself. Their popularity might have stemmed at least in part from their
cheapness and in part from their briefness, which would provide an easier and
compact way of reading the sacred text.
Erünsal’s examination of the probate records also reveals that in the shops of
booksellers Qur’ans from a wide range of prices were available.335 The prices of the
Qur’an depended on the beauty of the handwriting and the name of the scribe who
copied it.336 In some of the probate records the names of the calligraphers are noted
in order to assess the value of the books.337 The table at the end of Erünsal’s book
shows the price range of the Qur’an copies whose name of the calligrapher or copyist
was mentioned in the probate records of the booksellers.338 It is seen that while the
Qur’ans written by famous calligraphers were sold at higher prices, those written by
less known calligraphers were sold at cheaper prices.339 As an example of changing
prices of Qur’an according to its calligrapher or copyist Erünsal points to a document
from 17 September 1765. In the auction340 for the books of Elhac Paşa b. Mustafa
Ağa a Qur’an was sold for 50.100 akçe on the assumption that it had copied by
335 Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar, 168.
336 Ibid., 193.
337 Ibid., 193. For the prices of Delâ’ilü’l-Hayrâts according to the names of the calligraphers who
copied it see Ibid., 197.
338 Ibid., 433-450.
339 Derman also mentions that people could buy Qur’ans according to their financial means. See
Derman, Letters in Gold, 23. Also, Mustafa ‘Âli notes the prices of books according to the quality of
calligraphy. See Akın Kıvanç, Epic Deeds of Artists, 176.
340 Auctions of books of a deceased person from the bureacuracy or ulema were another milieu of
purchasing books in the early modern Ottoman world. The practive of auctions of books continued in
the nineteeth century too. Erünsal examines the documents of auctions that give information on the
names and prices of books. See Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar, 304-315.
142
Mustafa Dede who was the son of Şeyh Hamdullah. Yet, after it was revealed that
the manuscript was not the work of Mustafa Dede its price fell to 31.200 akçe.341
Besides Qur’ans the booksellers were selling calligraphy examples too. For
example kıtas and writings in talik by unknown calligraphers, kıtas by Yedikuleli
Seyyid Abdullah and exercises (meşk) of Eğrikapılı Mehmed Rasim are seen in one
of the probate records of a bookseller.342 Erünsal gives other examples of probate
records that contain calligraphy examples by unknown calligraphers. Yet, he does
not mention their price range. For this reason it is not certain if the cheaper versions
of calligraphy were also in demand.
The Devhatü’l-Küttâb does not describe how these cheaper texts were sold to
readers whether by booksellers or by the copyists themselves. Erünsal demonstrates
that booksellers sometimes copied the books themselves and sometimes
commissioned copyists for this task.343 But especially in copying Qur’ans there was a
trade relation between the copyists and booksellers as it can be deduced from the
high numbers of Qur’ans in the probate records of booksellers.344
Alongside professional copyists and booksellers there were other people who
copied and sold books as an extra work. I have shown in the previous chapter the
copying activities of imams and instructor at the Qur’an schools. Erünsal argues that
the numerous copies of the same books in the probate records of judges and scholars
341 Ibid., 314.
342 Ibid., 161.
343 Ibid., 297.
344 Ibid., 298.
143
shows that they were also active in book copying and selling.345 For example he
mentions the probate record of one of the judges of Rumeli, Sahaf Halil Efendi who
as his epithet reveals, was also a bookseller.346 Devhatü’l-Küttâb also mentions a
certain Sahhâf Halil Efendi who was a judge in Rumeli. He may well have been the
same person mentioned by Erünsal. Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib states that: “the
exquisite and unique books copied by his hand [tahrir] are stored in the boxes of the
noble ulema and the dictionaries of various subjects composed by him embellish the
sincere pages of the eloquent people of the world.”347
Erünsal mentions that some booksellers resided in medreses or tekkes, and
judging by the notices in their probate records, the books they copied were also
located in their cells in these institutions.348 Devhatü’l-Küttâb also mentions
residents of medreses and tekkes and praises the multitude of their writings. For
example Arabzâde Mehmed Efendi was a resident of Nişancı Paşa Medresesi in
Kumkapı and was praised by the author as being one of the favored (makbûl) and
praiseworthy (memdûh) ones among the scholars and litterateurs (edîb). The author
states about him that
the unique and beautiful Qur’ans and other works written by him
embellish the chests of wise men and connoisseurs. It is known by
people of sense that his works and memorabilia in the treasuries of grand
345 Ibid., 123-126.
346 Ibid., 123. His probate record was prepared in 9 February 1765.
347 “[T]ahrîr-i dil-pezîrleri olan kütüb-i nefîse-i bî-hemtâ mahzûn-ı sandûka-ı kibâr-ı ulemâ ve her
fende tashîhleri olan lûgāt, zîver-i [sahâyif-i] derûn-i bülegā-yı kâinât [.]” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed
Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 196.
348 Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar, 127.
144
viziers and in the libraries of the ulema are more valuable than precious
stones.349
It seems that he was known only on account of his calligraphy because no other
profession is indicated for him. The author also mentions that “his conversation is
full of wisdom about calligraphy, he is competent to distinguish the good work and is
the best among the good companions of the salon.”350 This remark shows that he
shared the same cultural milieu as his clients. Another person Hatibzâde İbrâhim
Efendi came from Ereğli and resided in Aşık Paşa Tekkesi at Istanbul. The author
only states, “he is one the scribes who succeeded in writing many Qur’ans,
Delâ’ilü’l-hayrâts, the noble hadiths compiled by Buhâri and other beautiful
works.”351
Erünsal points to the booksellers among the janissaries too. Yet, he does not
give detailed accounts of their probate records. Seven janissaries are found in
Devhatü’l-Küttâb.352 The author remarks about four of them that they were copying
Qur’ans and Delâ’ilü’l-hayrâts. For example, the author states that Habbarzâde
349 “[K]itâbetleri olan mesâhif-i şerîfe-i bî-hemtâ ve âsâr-ı sâire-i ra’nâları zîver-i mahfaza-i ehl-i
kemâl ve ma’ârif-âşina olup […] Hazâin-i vüzerâ-yı izâm ve kütübhâne-i ulemâ-yı kirâmda âsâr ve
yâdigârları cevâhirden mu’teber idiği ehl-i insâfa zâhirdir.” Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-
Küttâb, 215-216.
350 “[S]ohbeti hikmet-engîz-i hat-şinâs ve sâhib-i temyîz, zübde-i meclis-ârâyân-ı âlem [.]” Ibid., 216.
351 “Nice mesâhif-i şerîfe ve Delâilü’l-hayrât ve ehâdîs-i şerîfeden Buhâri-i münîf ve âsâr-ı cemîle-i
sâire-i latîfe tahrîrâtına muvaffak küttâbdandır.” Ibid., 136. Also see the biographical entry of Konevî
Ali Efendi who was a resident of Çorlulu Ali Paşa Medresesi and spent his time by copying Qur’an
and teaching students calligraphy. Ibid., 266.
352 See the biographical entries for Bektaş Ağazâde, Haci Mustafa, Hüseyin Beşe ibn-i Ahmed,
Habbarzâde Abdurrahman Çelebi, Ömer Ağa, Kolozluzâde Ahmed Ağa and Giridî Mehmed Efendi in
Ibid., 92, 125,128,139, 229, 264 and 269.
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Abdurrahman Çelebi spent his life copying the Qur’an and other texts.353 Ömer Ağa
who was a retired (mütekā’id) janissary copied almost three hundred Qur’ans.354
Maybe they were copying Qur’ans and selling them to earn an extra income.
Another group that Erünsal discusses are the traders (Bezzazistan tüccarları).
He observes that the probate records of some traders include many copies of Qur’ans
and Delâ’ilü’l-hayrâts.355 For example in the probate record dated 14 December
1769 of one of the traders of Valide Han “besides six precious Qur’ans, four Dela’ili
Şerif, some books and more than one copy of some books existed.”356 Erünsal gives
examples from other traders who had books in their shops instead of other
commodities when they died, as it is understood from their probate records.357 In
Devhatü’l-Küttâb biographies of two traders, a yarn seller (dekâkîn-i habbâlînin
birinde bey ü şirâya mu’tād)358 and an ironmonger (na’lbur dükkânında mukīm)359
are given. The entry about the second one of these traders seems significant in
respect to the arguments of Erünsal. Yûsuf Efendi Âhenî was born in Istanbul, he
353 “Ömr-i azîzi mesâhif-i şerîfe ve kitâbet-i sâire-i latîfe tahrîrâtı ile güzerân edip[...]” Ibid., 139.
354 “[B]â-defter üç yüze karîb mesâhif-i şerîfe-i safâ-güster kitâbet eylediği mazbût-ı cilbend-i ruvât ve
mahfûz-ı mahfaza-i sikâttır.” Ibid.,229.
355 Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar, 131. Nelly Hanna discusses the relationship of traders
of Cairo with the written word between the years 1500-1800. She suggests a more flexible model of
literacy in order to take different types of literacies into consideration. See Nelly Hanna, “Literacy
Among Artisans and Tradesmen in Ottoman Cairo” in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead
(New York: Routledge, 2012), 319-331.
356 Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar, 132.
357 Ibid., 132-133.
358 Seyyid Abdulkadir Çelebi was selling yarn in his shop. Yet, after he learnt sülüs and nesih he
entrusted his shop to some employees and devoted his time to writing. See Suyolcuzâde Mehmed
Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 167-168.
359 Ibid., 345.
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learnt sülüs and nesih from Anbârî Derviş Ali and he wrote more than twenty
beautiful Qur’ans (mesâhif-i şerîfe-i bihterîn), En’âm, Evrâd and murakka’ât. He had
an ironmongery near Rüstem Paşa Mosque in Eminönü. Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib
narrates how Yusuf Efendi spent his time in his hardware store writing and teaching
students calligraphy: “Most of the time, this mine of learning, sits in the ironmongery
near Rüstem Paşa Mosque and copies Qur’ans and teaches calligraphy to the
students.”360 Maybe similar to the traders that Erünsal mentioned he was selling the
Qur’ans he copied in his shop instead of hardware.
The above-mentioned examples illustrate the individuals who sold books
probably as a way to gain extra income. But as Erünsal mentioned, there were
professional booksellers too. The probate records give limited information about
these booksellers. Yet, the biographical entries for three booksellers in the
Devhatü’l-Küttâb provide some insight about their cultural milieu as well as
reception. For example, Yusuf Efendi who came to Istanbul from Edirne is identified
as being from among the group of booksellers (sahhâf zümresinden).361 The author’s
remark demonstrates that booksellers were seen as a professional group. Yusuf
Efendi’s calligraphy is praised and the texts he copied are identified as “many
beautiful books and texts like Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât”.362 It would seem that Yusuf Efendi
copied books himself rather than commissioning them to other copyists. In addition,
360 “Ekser evkāt ol ma’den-i kemâlât, mahrûsa-i merkūmede vâki’ Rüstem Paşa Câmi’i kurbünde
na’lbur dükkânında […] mukīm ve onda dahi kitâbet-i pür-saâdet-i Nazm-ı Kerîm ve şâkirdân-ı
müsta’iddâna meşk ta’lîm eylemekten hālî olmayıp[.]” Ibid., 345.
361 Ibid., 349.
362 “[K]ütüb-i nefîse-i vâfire ve Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât emsâli kitâbet [.]” Ibid., 349.
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we learn that “Yusuf Efendi, being a bookseller, possessed many works of [the
famous calligrapher] İbnü’ş-Şeyh [also known as Şeyh Hamdullah] and other
antiquities”.363 This would suggest that as a bookseller Yusuf Efendi sold not only
books copied in his own time, but also antiquarian books and earlier examples of
calligraphy. In parallel to that, another bookseller Rıdvân Efendi is identified as a
connoisseur of calligraphy (hat-şinâs) who possessed the works of old and esteemed
calligraphers. The booksellers might have played the role of a trader from whom
people provided raw materials for calligraphy. In Yusuf Efendi’s entry the author
praises his skills in preparing the writing materials and paper (tabh-ı ahar ve
terbiyye-i evrak) that were important steps in calligraphy before starting.364 In this
regard, the text shows a multifunctional bookseller who not only sold contemporary
books but also copied them, sold antiquarian books and provided the materials for
writing. Also, all the three booksellers, including the judge-bookseller, are identified
as people known by the community. In other words, they are represented as
tradespeople who operated within a wide social network for business activities.
Until now, I have shown an important group represented in Devhatü’l-Küttâb,
the sülüs and nesih writers who were identified mostly with the multitude of the
things they wrote. I argued that as the structure and content of their biographical
entries show, they might be people coming from lower strata of society and making
an income through calligraphy.365 The inclusion of these people into the text is
363 “[S]ahhâf zümresinden olmakla nice âsâr-ı İbnü’ş-Şeyh’e ve yâdigâr-ı eslâfa mâlik [.]” Ibid., 349.
364 Ibid., 349.
365 The observations of the French naturalist and traveler called Dr. G. A. Olivier who stayed in
Istanbul between the years 1792 and 1795 are in accordance with my arguments. Olivier wrote that
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important to consider because we do not see such an inclusive tendency in the
previous biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. For this reason, in the light of the
recent studies I will try to examine the historical context that paved the way for the
inclusive approach of Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib.
3.10 The expansion of the written word
Dana Sajdi has argued that the eighteenth century Levant witnessed the entry of
people from various social backgrounds into the world of writing, which had
previously been dominated by members of the ulema.366 She calls these newcomers
“nouveau literates.” While Sajdi’s conceptualization of “nouveau literacy” is
centered on the authorship of new texts, by non-ulema, it could be usefully
broadened to include also the widening of the social profile of copyists and
calligraphers.
Nelly Hanna in her study on the book ownership in Cairo between the years
1600-1800 points to a similar phenomenon in the wider Ottoman geography.367 She
argues that from the sixteenth century onwards a large Mediterranean area witnessed
there are many copyists in Istanbul who copied Qur’ans and other books. He also observed that the
young people who learn how to read and write first earn their income by copying books, after they
became professionalized in calligraphy they start to write panels (levha) and if they find a way they
enter into the bureaucracy. See Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar, 300.
366 Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman
Levant (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2013), 6.
367 Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo’s Middle Class, Sixteenth to
Eighteenth Century (Syracuse, N. Y., Syracuse University Press, 2003).
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the expansion of learning and literacy.368 As a sign of this expansion she counts an
increase in the private ownership of books, in trading activities, and in the numbers
of Qur’an schools and libraries that were built, the emergence of coffee houses and
the multiplication of salons as milieus for reading aloud and intellectual activities.
From the seventeenth century onwards a decrease in the book prices in relation to the
cheapening of paper is observed.369 Accordingly, an increase in the numbers of cheap
copies of books is seen. In a similar vein to Erünsal, whose focus is on the book
market in Istanbul, Bursa and Edirne, Hanna notes that in the book market in Cairo
the price of copied books also depended on the quality of calligraphy.370 We also
learn from her study that Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât was a best-seller in eighteenth-century
Cairo, just as it was in eighteenth-century Istanbul.371
The representation of people from more modest social backgrounds in
relation to written culture might also be read as a sign of the expansion of written
culture during the period that Devhatü’l-Küttâb was written. In a similar vein to
Cairo, Istanbul witnessed the expansion of writing in the eighteenth century. As
Erünsal mentions, there was an increase in the numbers of books in the probate
records. The numbers of Qur’an schools increased and like fountains they became a
popular architectural structure type that was sponsored by a wide range of patrons.372
368 Ibid., 58.
369 Ibid., 91.
370 Ibid., 90.
371 Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar, 131 and 197.
372 See Özgönül Aksoy, Osmanlı Devri İstanbul Sıbyân Mektepleri Üzerine Bir İnceleme (İstanbul:
İsmail Akgün Matbaası, 1968), 68-127.
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From the seventeenth century onwards libraries started to be built as independent
buildings from mosques.373 Last but not least, the first printing press publishing
works in Ottoman Turkish was established by İbrahim Müteferrika in 1720. Even
though print culture would not take off in the Ottoman Empire until the nineteenth
century, neither was İbrahim Müteferrika’s printing press a totally failed
entrepreneurship.374 Thus, printed books started to circulate in growing numbers. So,
the channels of the written word expanded and diversified compared to the earlier
centuries. The visibility of writing in the city increased too. The inscriptions on the
buildings got longer. 375 The usage of Turkish both in the inscriptions on buildings
and tombstones increased.376 Thus, besides privately owned materials like books, the
written word increasingly became visible in the texture of urban life.
373 İsmail Erünsal, Osmanlı Vakıf Kütüphaneleri: Tarihî Gelişimi ve Organizasyonu (Ankara: Türk
Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 2008), 171. For the libraries built during the reigns of Ahmed III and
Mahmud I see Ibid., 170-233.
374 For debates on the İbrahim Müteferrika printing press see Orlin Sabev, İbrahim Müteferrika ya da
İlk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (İstanbul: Yeditepe Yayınevi, 2006). Sabev, “The First Ottoman
Turkish Printing Enterprise: Success or Failure?” in Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and
Life-Style in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Dana Sajdi (New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), 63-
83.
375 Hatice Aynur and Hakan T. Karateke, Aç Besmeleyle İç Suyu Han Ahmed’e Eyle Dua: III. Ahmed
Devri İstanbul Çeşmeleri (İstanbul: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Kültür İşleri Daire Başkanlığı
Yayınları, 1995), 71.
376 Ibid., 71. Also see Edhem Eldem, İstanbul’da Ölüm: Osmanlı ve İslam Kültüründe Ölüm ve
Ritüelleri (İstanbul: Osmanlı Bankası Arşiv ve Araştırma Merkezi, 2005), 130.
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3.11 Eighteenth-century Ottoman calligraphy
Martin Lings argues that in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire the field of
calligraphy witnessed more remarkable changes than architecture.377 A wider
experimentation in calligraphy is seen in this period. Blair states that in this period
calligraphy in the Ottoman lands became more dynamic compared to the earlier
centuries: moreover, the Ottoman tradition of calligraphy became known among the
Arabic and Persian traditions.378 According to the scholars working on Ottoman
calligraphy especially with the emergence of the so-called school of Hafız Osman
(1642-98) the style of Şeyh Hamdullah was transformed and elaborated. Derman
argues that with the new style introduced by Hafız Osman, Şeyh Hamdullah’s style
was abandoned.379 The century witnessed the revival of the nesih script, and the
proliferation of hilye and single-sheet works. Innovative calligraphic formats like
such as illustrated Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât manuscripts, portable hilye panels, and poetic
border inscriptions in nestalik script, and kıta, which refers to an album page, was
composed increasingly.380 Tim Stanley refers to a decrease in the interest in the Six
Pens (aklâm-ı sitte) except sülüs and nesih types.381 He designates the midseventeenth
century as the period in which a revival of interest in nesih script started
377 Martin Lings, The Quranic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination (London: World of Islam Festival
Trust, 1976), 67.
378 Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, 483-485. Also see Alparslan, Osmanlı Hat Sanatı Tarihi, 64-78.
379 Derman, Letters in Gold, 72.
380 Ibid., 81.
381 Tim Stanley, “İstanbul and its Scribal Diaspora”, 66.
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by way of an increase in the Qur’an production which is noticeable in Devhatü’l-
Küttâb too. According to him the revival of nesih script reached its highest degree
with the influence of Hafız Osman.382
Talik and nestalik scripts and especially the Safavid calligrapher İmâd’s (d.
1615) style in nestalik gained increasing visibility, usage and prestige in the
eighteenth century. In fact, both of these scripts had been in use in the Ottoman
world from the fifteenth century onwards.383 Yet, the previous biographical
dictionaries do not refer them as script types at which the Ottomans themselves
excelled. Mustafa ‘Âli’s Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân and Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi’s
Gülzâr-ı Savâb portray an Ottoman calligraphic world which was dominated by Six
Pens (Aklâm-ı Sitte). Divani script is also mentioned as an area of expertise for some
Ottoman scribes in Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân. Yet, as I mentioned in the previous
chapter, nestalik script is explicitly reserved for the Persian scribes in both
biographical dictionaries. In Devhatü’l-Küttâb the influence of Six Pens except sülüs
and nesih scripts and the domination of the Persian calligraphers in talik, nestalik and
şikest nestalik diminished. Instead, talik, nestalik and şikest nestalik appear as scripts
types that were excelled by the Ottoman calligraphers. Devhatü’l-Küttâb shows that
İmâd’s works and style expanded to Istanbul to a large extent during the first half of
the eighteenth century. A lot of people in the text, especially people among the
382 Ibid., 67.
383 Keskiner, “Sultan Ahmed III (r.1703-1730) as a Calligrapher and Patron of Calligraphy,” 74.
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members of the religious establishment, were experts in talik and nestalik and they
are said to have been following İmâd’s style.384
Talik and nestalik scripts gained popularity especially in the poetic
inscriptions on the mansions, fountains and tombstones at the eighteenth century.385
While celi müsenna script is specified for the inscriptions on mosques, nestalik script
is specified mostly for the inscriptions on pavilions or seaside mansions. Hatice
Aynur and Hakan T. Karateke explain the popularity of talik script by its simple
style, which does not need difficult combinations of letters like inscriptions in
sülüs.386 They observe that during the eighteenth century while the inscriptions with
short texts were written in sülüs, the ones with long and difficult poems were written
in talik.387 Since the inscriptions became longer in this period, it might be argued that
the visibility of talik script increased too. Hamadeh argues that talik and nestalik
inscriptions became a fundamental part of architecture of the era.388
Yet, we do not know the historical contexts of the rise of nestalik as a script
which was frequently used in inscriptions. It is not known whether there was a
systematic usage of the script types of the inscriptions according to the building
types which have different functions. Questions concerning the functions of
384 Two people among the ulema, the scholar and the military judge Arif Abdülbaki Efendi and his
grandson Şeref Mehmed Efendi had İmâd’s kıtas in their collections. It is understood that Arif
Abdülbaki Efendi’s collection was known by the students of calligraphy and the author, and used for
the purposes of education. See Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Devhatü’l-Küttâb, 235 and 190.
385 Keskiner, “Sultan Ahmed III (r.1703-1730) as a Calligrapher and Patron of Calligraphy,” 74.
386 Aynur and Karateke, III.Ahmed Devri İstanbul Çeşmeleri, 73.
387 Ibid., 73.
388 Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 89.
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inscriptions are waiting to be answered. Additionally, the reasons behind the
preference of nestalik script, instead of other script types, in poetic inscriptions are
not dealt with in the studies on Ottoman calligraphy and epigraphy. And finally, as
Tabbaa points out in the context of the inscriptions in the tenth century389, we still
need to investigate what kinds of relationship existed between the calligraphic and
architectural transformations which were undergoing simultaneously during the
eighteenth century.
Tabbaa criticizes the approach of researchers in the field of Islamic
epigraphy. He argues that, since the fields of Islamic epigraphy and paleography
restricted their research “to the recording and translation of inscriptions on
monuments and art objects” we do not have any examination of the artistic meaning
and visual impact of inscriptions.390 He suggests taking “the various dimensions of
the relationship between the form(s) and meaning(s) of certain new calligraphic
styles” into account for a better understanding of the transformations in calligraphic
form.391 In fact, studies relating to the Ottoman epigraphy are not in a different
situation from the ones criticized by Tabbaa. The studies of scholars like Aynur and
Karateke have introduced valuable data and have prepared the ground for future
studies on Ottoman epigraphy.392 In this respect, the field of Ottoman epigraphy is
389 Yasser Tabbaa, “The Transformation Of Arabic Writing: Part I,” 141.
390 Ibid., 119.
391 Ibid., 120.
392 See the database for Ottoman inscriptions: http://info.ottomaninscriptions.com (Accessed
01.08.2015)
155
ready for new questions and approaches regarding the transformations in calligraphic
forms in the eighteenth century.
There are no historical studies that attempt to answer these questions
concerning the eighteenth-century Ottoman inscriptions. Yet, recent studies by
Edhem Eldem, Nina Ergin, Gülru Necipoğlu and İrvin Cemil Schick introduce
approaches close to Tabbaa who understands the changing calligraphic forms by
examining their aesthetic and referential function, or in other words, their artistic
meaning and visual impact within the historical context. 393 These studies show the
possibility of understanding and interpreting the function, increased visibility, forms,
contents and receptions of the inscriptions written during the eighteenth century
within their historical context.
The eighteenth century witnessed an increase in the patronage activity of the
high-ranking bureaucrats. It is striking that they sponsored some of the public
libraries and Qur’an schools built in this period. 394 It seems significant to consider
that within a historical context in which calligraphy became highly esteemed, highranking
bureaucrats whose collective identity was closely related to their skills in
393 Edhem Eldem, “Writing Less, Saying More: Calligraphy and Modernisation in the Last Ottoman
Century” in Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World, ed. Mohammad Gharipour and İrvin
Cemil Schick (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 465-484; Nina Ergin, “Multi-Sensorial
Messages of the Divine and the Personal: Qur’an Inscriptions and Recitation in Sixteenth-Century
Ottoman Mosques in Istanbul” in Ibid., 105-119; Gülru Necipoğlu, “Qur’anic Inscriptions on Sinan’s
Imperial Mosques: A comparison with Their Safavid and Mughal Counterparts” in Word of God-Art
of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions, ed. Fahmida Suleiman, (Institute of Ismaili Studies
Conference Proceedings, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 69-104 and İrvin Cemil Schick,
“The Revival of Kūfī Script During the Reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II” in Calligraphy and
Architecture, 119-139.
394 Shirine Hamadeh, “Splash and Spectacle: The Obsession with Fountains in Eighteenth-Century
Istanbul,” Muqarnas 19 (2002), 124. On their endowment of libraries see Erünsal, Osmanlı Vakıf
Kütüphaneleri. On this issue, Yavuz Sezer of MIT is currently working on a PhD. dissertation entitled
“Architecture of Bibliophilia: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Libraries.”
156
calligraphy, sponsored buildings which were directly related to the transmission of
knowledge of calligraphy. When the relationship between the types of sponsored
buildings and the patrons is considered a strong reflection of one of the components
of the scribal identity, that is the knowledge of calligraphy, upon the architectural
patronage is noticed. As a further remark, the lavishly decorated inscriptions of the
buildings, besides the possible meanings and interpretations of the poems on them,
might be interpreted as a way of the scribal community to demonstrate their
domination over the field of calligraphy, literacy knowledge and its institutions.395
But, still the preference of nestalik script in the majority of the inscriptions on the
libraries, Qur’an schools and fountains remains unanswered.
The lack of studies concerning the history of Ottoman calligraphy and its
evolution through transregional contacts prevents us from examining the
representation of calligraphy in Devhatü’l-Küttâb in more detail. Yet, a discussion on
how Devhatü’l-Küttâb represents the chains of transmission of knowledge on
calligraphy and its reflection upon the structure of text might reveal some
transformations in the practice of calligraphy.
395 Yavuz Sezer will examine in his PhD. dissertation the relationship among the architectural styles
and elements of the eighteenth-century public libraries sponsored by the high-ranking bureaucrats, the
increasing patronage activities of the scribal community, reading practices and book culture.
157
3.12 The alphabetical ordering of the biographical entries as a sign of transformation
in the practice of calligraphy
The method of organization of biographies of calligraphers has a very fundamental
relation with the practice of calligraphy, its rendering and its evolution. Menâkıb-ı
Hünerverân and Gülzâr-ı Savâb present an arrangement according to the pedagogical
lineage of masters and students. We see the same phenomenon in the prototype of
the genre, that is, the album prefaces.396 By mainly relying on the biographies of
poets, Wadad al-Qadi defines the biographical dictionary as “[a] prose work whose
primary structure is that of a series of biographies, regardless of the order in which
these biographies succeed each other.”397 Yet, different from the biographies of
poets, the earlier examples of the biographies of calligraphers are arranged with
respect to a certain order: lineage of master-students. Here, we might realize that we
deal with two different genres which center upon two different fields. The main
difference I detect is in the notions of innovation and imitation in the Ottoman poetry
and calligraphy. We see that in biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, imitation
of master’s work is a highly esteemed indicator of a person’s success. In this fashion,
the biographical entries are ordered in a way that links a student to his master, in
other words, that links his style to the style of his master. For this reason, the method
of organization obtained in the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers follow the
396 Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 137.
397 Wadad al-Qadi, “Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Cultural Significance” in The
Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, ed. George N.
Atiyeh, (Albany: State University of New York Pres, 1995), 94.
158
master-student lineage which was the most important feature of the field.398 On the
other hand, innovation in the style of calligraphy is considered as a privilege of only
canonized masters such as Yaqut al-Musta‘simi, Şeyh Hamdullah and Ahmed
Karahisarî. In my opinion, for a better understanding of the difference of ordering of
the biographical entries within the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers and of
poets, we should examine the notions of innovation and imitation in Ottoman poetry
and calligraphy. Such a comparative look might help us develop alternative
perspectives on the early modern Ottoman discourses on poetry and calligraphy.
The method of organization is very much related to an intrinsic character of
calligraphy and is also related to a specific purpose of writing biographies of
calligraphers, that is, to unfold the pedagogical lineage of masters and students. Thus
the significance given to master-student relations is reflected in the form,
organization and content of biographical dictionaries of calligraphers. In the previous
examples of the genre we see a tendency to construct a history of calligraphy in
which the canon masters of calligraphy are the main actors and engine.399 The
difference of Devhatü’l-Küttâb becomes apparent at this point: It is not structured
according to the lineage of master-students but rather alphabetically. As a result, the
biographical entries of people who were taught calligraphy by different masters,
followed different styles and excelled in different script types are ordered one after
another in an alphabetical way.
398 For a discussion on the mechanisms of transmission in calligraphy and its reflection on the Timurid
and Safavid album prefaces see Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image, 136-150.
399 Roxburgh makes a similar observation on the Timurid and Safavid album prefaces see Ibid., 136-
137.
159
The author’s preference might be examined and interpreted in different ways.
He might have been influenced by the alphabetical order that was used in the
contemporary biographical dictionaries of poets. Or, he might have preferred the
alphabetical order to render his crowded biographical dictionary more user-friendly.
But, I think, the alphabetical order is very much related to the author’s portrayal and
the historical context of the world of calligraphy in the first half of the eighteenth
century. Devhatü’l-Küttâb does not determine the talent and success of a calligrapher
in relation to his master-student lineage but rather brings forward other features such
as the career line, the cultural milieu, patronage relationships, oeuvre, etc. of the
calligrapher. Thus, the domination of the master-student relationship on the
representation of the evolution of calligraphy styles is shaken to a certain extent. Yet,
I do not argue that the significance of master-student relationship on the calligraphy
style of a person in the practical sphere diminished. Here, I only refer to the
representation of the master-student relationship within the textual sphere. While the
canonized masters or the key innovators of scripts happened to be the main figure in
the chain of transmission in the previous biographical dictionaries, their names
appear in Devhatü’l-Küttâb in a less consistent way. Thus, while the previous
examples represent a linear historical movement towards progress and perfection of
one style, Devhatü’l-Küttâb constructs a fragmentary and non-linear narrative, which
includes the evolution of various styles. In fact, this might be a result of the
expansion and multiplication of the channels of transmission of knowledge in the
first half of the eighteenth century. As I have shown in the previous chapter,
compared to the earlier examples of the genre in Devhatü’l-Küttâb different agents,
160
both instructors from different social backgrounds and paper models, which enabled
students to study by themselves, appear as the transmitter of knowledge of
calligraphy. In other words, the master calligrapher is not depicted as the sole
authority in learning calligraphy.
Then, how can we approach Devhatü’l-Küttâb as a canon forming text in
calligraphy? It is a significant question to discuss because, as I have mentioned,
scholars have mostly read biographical dictionaries as texts that were written in order
to construct canon. In her discussion on whether Âşık Çelebi tries to construct a
canon in the Ottoman poetry through writing Meşa’irü’ş-Şu’ara as the scholars argue
it, Altok stays on the negative side. By showing that Âşık Çelebi included the people
with whom he had a personal relationship into his biographical dictionary, she argues
that social relationship played a significant role in his choice to include a person
alongside aesthetic criteria.400 According to her the sense of community which
infiltrated into the text prevents to construct a hegemonic structure like canon.401 As I
mentioned previously a similar sense of community is seen in Devhatü’l-Küttâb too.
Unless the other written sources of calligraphy from the same period are examined, it
is not possible to evaluate which people are included and which people are excluded
from the text in order to understand what kind of a selective attitude the author
obtained. But, for now I think it should suffice to say that, similar to Âşık Çelebi,
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib’s primary concern was not to introduce a hegemonic
structure like canon. The author does not declare a preference for or give superiority
400 Altok, “Âşık Çelebi ve Edebî Kanon,”127.
401 Ibid., 132.
161
to a specific style. On the contrary, he recognizes the practitioners of calligraphy in
Devhatü’l-Küttâb as the followers of different styles according to the script type in
which they excelled. This tendency within the text creates a pluralist discourse on
calligraphy, which does not try to emphasize the impact of a sole authority.
In general it is remarked in the text that the sülüs and nesih writers were
followers of the style of Şeyh Hamdullah, talik and nestalik writers were followers of
the style of İmâd and/or Nergisîzâde402, and divani writers were followers of the style
of Taczâde403. It has been argued by the scholars that the influence of Şeyh
Hamdullah’s style diminished with Hafız Osman’s renovation of his style. For this
reason, the scholars read the eighteenth century as the period in which Hafız
Osman’s style became dominant. Yet, Devhatü’l-Küttâb introduces the eighteenthcentury
Ottoman calligraphy as a world in which various styles existed. Also, more
than Hafız Osman, Şeyh Hamdullah’s style appears still as one of the dominant
styles that many sülüs and nesih writers followed. It seems that Hafız Osman’s style
started to be influential in the second half of the eighteenth century.
402 The famous scholar and judge Nergisî (d.1635) was known especially with his prose writing style.
His style in hurde talik, şikest talik and nestalik was revered too. For his biography and works in
various manuscript libraries see Süleyman Çaldak, “Nergisî” in TDVİA 32 (İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet
Vakfı, 2006), 560-562. For an analysis of the correspondence between Nergisî and his fellow judge
Veysi see Woodhead, The Gift of Letters: correspondence between Nergisi (d.1634) and Veysi
(d.1627)” in Kitaplara Vakfedilen Bir Ömre Tuhfe: İsmail E. Erünsal’a Armağan vol.2 Edebiyat ve
Tasavvuf, Kütüphanecilik ve Arşivcilik, ed. Hatice Aynur, et.al (İstanbul: Ülke Yayınları, 2014), 971-
989.
403 Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi was the insignia bearer (nişancı) of Beyazıd II. He was famous with his
skills in porety, prese writing and calligraphy. He played a major role in the improvement of divani
and siyakat scripts. For his biography and works see İsmail E. Erünsal, “Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi” in
TDVİA v. 39 (İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 2010), 353-356.
162
3.13 Concluding remarks
If Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib did not construct a hegemonic structure like canon,
did not play the role of a critic and did not claim authority over the field of
calligraphy why did he attempt to write such a comprehensive biographical
dictionary of calligraphers? In order to answer this question and examine the author’s
self-representation in the text some cultural practices around calligraphy seem
significant to consider. As I have mentioned calligraphy was a common interest
among the Ottoman elites. In this regard, many people in the text are mentioned as
collectors of calligraphy. It was not a new cultural phenomenon indeed, as it is
understood from the references on collecting artworks in Mustafa ‘Âli’s biographical
dictionary of calligraphers. Yet, I think, Devhatü’l-Küttâb reflects the expansion of
this cultural practice further down the social ladder. Having the ability to evaluate a
beautiful work of calligraphy and to distinguish calligraphic works of different
people are represented as accomplishments. In this regard, Devhatü’l-Küttâb serves
the author to demonstrate his knowledge in the field of calligraphy in a period in
which calligraphic knowledge was esteemed.
The beginning of this chapter touched upon the emphasis of the recent studies
on the concern for social display during the eighteenth century. In this context, Sajdi
reads the contemporary chronicles written by the nouveau literates as “a potent
instrument of self-fashioning.”404 Because in these texts, the authors wrote the events
404 Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus, 8.
163
around them and thus, the texts were author centric.405 In this regard, the
contemporary chronicles provide the author room for self-display. It is true that
Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib cannot be counted as a nouveau literate as a judge
coming from a scholarly family which was famous in the field of calligraphy.
Neither does Devhatü’l-Küttâb belong to the genre of contemporary history. Yet, I
find many similarities between it and the history of the Damascene barber Ibn
Budayr studied by Sajdi. Both of them have an emphasis in a large extent on the
present of the author and expose the world and events around the author. In a sense,
both of the texts provide the author with a space for self-representation. Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib represents himself not only as a person who only professionalized in
calligraphy but also as a well-equipped intellectual having skills in poetry, prose
writing, eloquence and articulateness too.
Sajdi explains the eighteenth century as a period that witnessed a
reconfiguration in the social and political map.406 The newly emerging order, in
Sajdi’s words, “was constituted around the new households and networks, which
afforded fresh opportunities to individuals and groups and through which many
experienced a change in social position or status.”407 Social networking became an
important activity in order to reach better positions in this context. By writing a
comprehensive biographical dictionary which features mostly contemporaries
interested in calligraphy, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib demonstrates his wide social
405 Ibid., 8.
406 Ibid., 16.
407 Ibid., 16.
164
network. In the biographical dictionary itself social networking, being known and
liked by the other people were highlighted as esteemed characteristics of a person.
Thus, through the text the author demonstrates his own success in social networking
too. Thus, he seems to be in a good position within the world of calligraphy. The
writing of the biographical dictionary might provide him with an opportunity to
negotiate with the sultans and the participants of the salons for new positions.
Another purpose to write such a text might be his inclination to compose a
guidebook for the patrons so that they can see the contemporary people interested in
calligraphy, the scripts in which they excelled, their backgrounds, oeuvre, cultural
milieus while they search for someone to be their private secretaries, to commission
copying a book for themselves or inscribing an architectural structure that they
sponsored.
Therefore, by exposing various areas of usage of calligraphy Devhatü’l-
Küttâb portrays a dynamic and multifaceted culture of calligraphy in the first half of
the eighteenth century. In contrast to the earlier biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers which frequently refer to the mystical characteristics of calligraphy and
the calligrapher, Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib draws calligraphy as a worldly and
corporeal practice by way of unfolding the process of self-development of
calligrapher, his patronage relations, career line and cultural and social milieus in
which he partook.
The author’s inclusive tendency provides us with an opportunity to see the
calligraphy practices of a wider scale of the Ottoman society. Also, the text
demonstrates the various functions of calligraphy for different groups of the society
165
such as the members of the bureaucratic, administrative and religious establishments.
While practicing calligraphy or to own a beautiful handwriting became a highly
esteemed skill for the members of the administrative, bureaucratic and religious
establishments, for some it became a way for earning their livelihood. The text does
not include the people who professionalized merely in calligraphy. The people whose
biographies are covered excelled in calligraphy to various degrees. Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib exhibits a broader and diversifed world of calligraphy. In contrast to
the perceptions of the current scholarship on the Ottoman calligraphy, Suyolcuzâde
Mehmed Necib, as a practitioner, does not limit the scope of calligraphy into
religious or artistic sphere isolated from the social, political and cultural phenomena
of the eighteenth-century Ottoman world. Instead, he puts the calligraphy into the
center of the force field of societal and political affiliations.
166
CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION
This thesis focused on three Ottoman biographical dictionaries of calligraphers
produced between the late sixteenth and the early eighteenth century. Yet, the
compilation of biographical dictionaries of calligraphers continued throughout the
second half of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries in the Ottoman Empire.408
Approximately fifty years later than Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib, Müstakimzâde
Süleymân Saadettin (d. 1788) finished one of the most comprehensive biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers in the Ottoman Empire, namely Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn. In the
current scholarship on the Ottoman calligraphy, the relationship between the two
texts is stated merely in order to indicate the superiority of Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn in terms
of comprehensiveness and reliability. It is certain that Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn covers the
biographies of calligraphers from a broader geography and situates the Ottoman
practice of calligraphy into a broader context.409 Yet, the relationship between
Devhatü’l-Küttâb, Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn and the later biographical dictionaries of
408 See Tim Stanley, “After Müstakim-zade,” in Islamic Art in the 19th Century: Tradition,
Innovation, and Eclecticism, ed. Doris Behrens-Abouseif and Stephen Vernoit (Leiden: Brill
Academic Publications, 2006). Some of the works written after Devhatü’l-Küttâb are as follow:
Tuhfe-i Hattâtîn by Müstakimzâde Süleymân Saadettin (d. 1788); Mîzânü’l-Hat Alâ Vaz’ı Üstâdi’s-
Selef by Kebecizâde Mehmed el-Vâsfî (copied in 1784); Mizânü’l-Hat by Hakkâkzâde Mustafa Hilmi
Efendi (d. 1852); Defter-i Pâk-i Erbâb-ı Danîş by Şeyhü’l-İslâm Sadüddin Efendi (d. 1866);
Tezkiretü’l-Hattâtîn by Müfti Mehmed Şem’i Efendi (d. 1855); Hatt ve Hattâtân by Habib (1835-
1894); Mir’ât-ı Hattâtîn by Eğinli Süleyman Efendi (d.1924); İbnülemin Mahmut Kemal İnal, Son
Hattatlar (İstanbul, Maarif Basımevi, 1955). Some of them were printed. See Müstakimzâde, Tuhfe-i
Hattâtîn, ed. Mustafa Koç (İstanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2014); Hakkâkzâde Mustafa Hilmi Efendi,
Mizânü’l-Hat, ed. Abdülkadir Dedeoğlu (İstanbul: Osmanlı Yayınevi, 1986); Mirza Habib İsfahani,
Hatt ve Hattâtân, ed. Ebuzziya Tevfik Bey (İstanbul: Matbaa-i Ebuziya, 1888). For some information
on the content of these works see İnal, Son Hattatlar, 7-14.
409 Stanley, “After Müstakim-zade,” 91.
167
calligraphers has more to say concerning the Ottoman notions of and discourses on
calligraphy.
It is important to notice that before writing his biographical dictionary of
calligraphers Müstakimzâde Süleymân Saadettin first copied the previous three
examples of the genre, which are the main texts discussed in this thesis. And, the
three copies were collected chronologically in a miscellany either by Müstakimzâde
Süleymân Saadettin or by the calligrapher İbrâhim Tâhir, whose name is specified in
the colophon as the owner of the miscellany. The story of the compilation of the
miscellany and its ownership by another calligrapher demonstrate the existence of a
genalogical consciousness about calligraphy in the minds of the early modern
Ottoman calligraphers and authors of the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers.
Instead of portraying the activities of contemporary calligraphers, the biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers provide the practitioners of the art with an origin and
genealogy to rely on by way of drawing the scope of the practitioners from the tenth
century onwards. In this regard, the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers played
a significant role in creating and transmitting a genealogical narrative on Ottoman
calligraphy.
Yet, the genealogical narrative on calligraphy that the authors proposed
should not be considered as unchanged throughout the centuries. The current
scholarship on Ottoman calligraphy has treated the Ottoman biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers produced between the sixteenth and the end of
nineteenth centuries merely as databanks that give information on the biographies of
the practitioners of calligraphy that lived from the sixteenth century onwards. The
168
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers are generally taken to be repetitive and
cliché-laden sources. For this reason, few studies have attempted to examine these
texts on their own and to understand the way they constructed a genealogical
narrative about Ottoman calligraphy.
On the other hand, the previous three biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers that this thesis has examined expose different notions of and discourses
on calligraphy by way of constructing relatively different narratives on Ottoman
calligraphy. In the narratives that these texts provide the history of the alphabet and
writing, the representation of the functions of calligraphy and the figure of
calligrapher, the position of canonical masters in the expansion of calligraphy styles,
the way of transmission of knowledge of calligraphy and the role of calligraphy
within the life story of an individual differ considerably. Because of this difference,
an alternative reading of these sources paves the way for a better understanding of
the changing notions and functions of calligraphy.
Obtaining the discourses that perceive the practice of calligraphy merely
within a religious and artistic sphere prevents one from discerning the possible
functions and roles of calligraphy within the political and social spheres. Yet, in
major contrast to the arguments of current scholarship, the biographical dictionaries
of calligraphers display the practice of calligraphy as a tool within a variety of
affiliations. For example, concerning the affiliation of the practice of calligraphy to
politics, the sources involve notices that show the script type as a component of the
early modern imperial identity as a means of differentiation from other states. A
further study that will examine the written sources of calligraphy together with the
169
documents that are able to show the role of calligraphy in politics such as official
correspondences might show the way the script types were subjected to a
geographical division by the authors of the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers,
i.e. Rumi lands as the scope of divani and Safavid lands as the scope of talik and
nestalik scripts, and the role of script type in the early modern empire-building
processes.
Since this thesis limits itself to the three early examples of the Ottoman
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, it does not address the biographical
dictionaries of calligraphers and other written sources of calligraphy produced in
different geographies. It is certain that in order to understand the accuracy,
consistency and degree of the geographical compartmentalization of script types and
the role of script type as a means of differentiation for the states, a comparative
perspective on various calligraphy traditions is required. Such an approach would
also reveal the cross-cultural attitudes towards calligraphy. A further dimension
should be added which considers the varieties on the history of calligraphy and
different ways of constructing the history of calligraphy that was embraced by the
authors coming from different calligraphy traditions. In this regard, the narratives on
the branching of calligraphy styles into various paths in different geographies after
the impact of Ibn Muqla (d. 940), Ibn al-Bawwāb (d. 1022) and Yaqut al-Musta‘simi
(d. 1299?) might be scrutinized with alternative perspectives. Also, the position of
calligraphy masters who were “canonized” whether by their contemporaries or by the
future generations in the histories of other calligraphy traditions, i.e. the position of
170
Şeyh Hamdullah or Hafız Osman in the Safavid written sources of calligraphy, might
give us further perspectives on the cultures of calligraphy.
It is difficult to examine the representation of calligraphy within various
spheres and affiliations without questioning the conceptualizations and approaches
that are imposed upon it by the scholarship. The three biographical dictionaries of
calligraphers that are examined in this thesis demonstrate the need for modifying
some of the concepts that have been frequently used. Therefore, I have argued that
the ambiguous adjective “Islamic” that stands before the term “calligraphy” is driven
by ideas that designate a scope for calligraphy merely within a sacred and religious
sphere. Additionally, contrary to the mainstream understandings of the term and
practice of calligraphy the sources exhibit a variety of practices from copying secular
books to Qur’ans, from composing hilyes to writing official correspondences. Thus,
the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers appear as significant sources for the
studies relating to the early modern reading and writing practices. Besides sources
such as probate records and library catalogues that give quantitative data, the
biographical dictionaries of calligraphers provide us with an opportunity to
understand the world of people who had a close relationship with written culture and
who possessed knowledge of calligraphy as well as the social attitudes towards them.
In a major contrast to the earlier biographical dictionaries of calligraphers, the
inclusive approach that Devhatü’l-Küttâb displays in comprising the biographies of
individuals from a variety of social groups complies with the increasing expansion of
written culture through the eighteenth century. The reflections of the increasing
impact of print culture, the participation of other actors in written culture such as
171
women and the transformations that were under way in the field of calligraphy onto
the biographical dictionaries of calligraphers that were written in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries remain to be studied in the future.
172
APPENDIX A
TABLES
Table 1: Menâkıb-ı Hünerverân410
410 The numbers in the table are approximate because the author Mustafa ‘Âli does not always identify
the individuals in a clear way. He does not indicate the profession of each individual. Sometimes he
only mentions the script type in which the individual excelled. For this reason I prefer to use the
comprehensive classification “Expertise/Profession” which can include different groupings.
EXPERTISE/PROFESSION FROM THE OTTOMAN
WORLD
FROM THE IRANIAN
WORLD
Writers of the Six Pens 27 0
Writers of nestalik 1 53
Writers of divani 9 (4 of them are chancery
scribes or prose stylists.)
4 (1 of them is a chancery
scribe.)
Writers of çep 0 14 (10 of them are
chancery scribes or prose
writers.)
Calligrapher 12 73
Chancery scribe 6 4
Court calligrapher (Saray
hattatı)
1 2
Instructor of calligraphy
(Meşk hocası)
1 (At Galatasaray) 0
Finance minister
(Muhasib/defterdar)
4 1
Total 61 151
173
Table 2: Gülzâr-ı Savâb411
SCRIPT TYPE FROM THE OTTOMAN
WORLD
FROM THE IRANIAN
WORLD
Six Pens 22 (Experts especially in
sülüs and nesih.)
0
Talik 2 17
Divani 1 0
Total 25 17
411 The numbers in the table are approximate because the author Nefeszâde İbrahim Efendi does not
identify the individuals always in a clear way.
174
Table 3: Devhatü’l-Küttâb412
PROFESSION NUMBER SCRIPT
TYPE
OEUVRE413 INSCRIPTION
Bureaucracy 84 52 divani 1 Sadi’s
Gülistan, 1 Kadı
Beyzavi
Ulema 81 55 talik or
nestalik
7 various books;
50 kıtas and
exquisite books;
1 Qur’an,
En’âm, Evrâd; 1
Delâ’ilü’lhayrât
4 nestalik
inscriptions
onto pavilions
Administrative
elite and palace
officials
57 11 divani, 11
sülüs and
nesih, 7 talik
and nestalik
2 Şifa-yı Kadı
İyazs; 2
Qur’ans; 33
kıtas and
exquisite books
2 inscriptions
in mosques and
1 celi müsenna
inscription in a
mausoleum
İmam 13 7 sülüs and
nesih
2 commentaries;
6 Qur’ans,
En’âms, Evrâds,
Delâ’ilü’lhayrâts;
5 kıtas
and exquisite
books
Instructor at
Qur’an school
13 5 sülüs 6 Qur’ans,
En’âms, Evrâds,
Delâ’ilü’lhayrâts
Instructor of
calligraphy
24 5 nesih, 2
talik
Various books
Instructor of
calligraphy in
the palace
19 7 nesih, 2
talik
Various books 1 inscription in
a mosque and 1
inscription on a
sabil
Multitude of
writing/ Busy
with writing414
115 59 sülüs and
nesih, 6 talik
32 Qur’ans,
En’âms, Evrâds,
Delâ’ilü’l-
1 inscription on
the gate of
Kaaba, 1 in a
412 The numbers in the table are approximate because the author Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib does not
identify the individuals always in a clear way.
413 The names of books and works are written in the way Suyolcuzâde Mehmed Necib indicates.
414 115 individuals in Devhatü’l-Küttâb are identified merely with the multitude of the things they
wrote. The author does not indicate any other profession for them.
175
hayrâts; various
books
mosque in
Tunis, 3 in
various
mosques
Janissary 7 4 sülüs and
nesih
3 Qur’ans,
En’âms, Evrâds,
Delâ’ilü’lhayrâts
Bookseller 4 3 sülüs and
nesih
1 exquisite book
and Delâ’ilü’lhayrât
Trader 2 2 sülüs and
nesih
1 Qur’an,
En’âm, Evrâd
176
APPENDIX B
IMAGES
Figure 1.1. The opening page of a Qur’an in 30 parts
Great Mosque of Khanbaliq, China, the former seat of the Mongol emperor, 30
Muharram 804 (9 October 1401)
Scribe and illuminator: Hajji Rashad ibn ‘Ali al-Sini
Inscription: “a’ū[dhu] bi-llāh min al-shaytān al-rajīm” (“I seek refuge in God from
Satan the accursed”) (Manijeh Bayani et al, The Decorated Word, 10).
177
Figure 1.2. Part 29 of the same Qur’an
Script: The distinctive form of muhakkak used in the Chinese Qur’ans in 30 parts
(Ibid., 15).
Figure 2. Qur’an in 30 parts
China, Ramadan 1013 (January-February 1605)
Scribe: ‘Abd al-Latif ibn Shams al-Din al-Sini
Script: Muhakkak (Ibid., 21).
178
Figure 3. Single volume Qur’an
East Africa, Shawwal 1162 (September-October 1749)
Script: The main text is in a regional hand and the surah headings are in nesih.
Scribe: Hajj Sa’d ibn ? Adish ‘Umar Din (Ibid., 29).
179
Figure 4. Single volume Qur’an
Western Sudan, late 19th century
Script: The main text in the Sudani variant of the Maghribi script (Ibid., 38).
180
Figure 5. Qur’an in two volumes
Morocco, 18th century
Script: The main text is in Maghribi. (Ibid., 48).
Figure 6. Part 22 of a 30-part Qur’an
Mamluk, circa 1453-1461
Script: The main text is in nesih and the incidentals are in sülüs.
Patron: Probably Sultan Inal (James, After Timur, 62).
181
Figure 7. Single folio
Mamluk, circa AD 1430-1460
The text runs from Sūrat al-qalam, verse 35 to Sūrat al-haqqah, verse 19.
Script: The main text is in muhakkak and the incidentals are in sülüs. (Ibid., 65).
182
Figure 8. Double page with Sura 27:1-5 from an eight-volume Qur’an
North Africa, late 15th century
Script: Stylized version of maghribi script
A note in one volume says that the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V acquired it
during his expedition to Tunis and Algiers in 1535. (Blair, Islamic Calligraphy,
398).
183
Figure 9. Qur’an in two volumes
India, 15th century
Script: Bihari
Outer Border: Persian translation in nesih script. (James, After Timur, 106-107).
184
Figure 10. Single volume Qur’an
Iran, probably Isfahan, 1689-90
Script: The main text is in nesih, in black; interlinear translation is in şikeste,
in red; surah heading are in rika, in gold.
Scribes: Muhammad Riza al-Shirazi (main text), Ibn Muhammad Amin
Muhammad Hadi Shirazi (translation, preface and commentary).
From the preface to the interlinear translation it is understood that the text
was composed for the Safavid ruler Shah Sulayman (r. 1666-1694). (Manijeh Bayani
et al, The Decorated Word, 140-141).
185
Figure 11. Qur’an
Baghdad, 1001
Scribe: Ibn al-Bawwāb (1024) (George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy, 115).
186
Figure 12. Qur’an
Script: Muhakkak
Scribe: Ascribed to Yaqut al-Musta‘simi (d. 1299?) (Serin, Hat Sanatı ve Meşhur
Hattatlar, 64).
187
Figure 13. Volume containing 12 suras of the Qur’an
Ottoman, circa 1490-1500
Script: Nesih
Scribe: Şeyh Hamdullah (James, After Timur, 101).
Figure 14. Single-volume Qur’an
Ottoman, circa 1490-1500
Script: The main text in nesih, the incidentals in sülüs.
Scribe: Perhaps Şeyh Hamdullah (Ibid., 101).
188
Figure 15. Panel of Hutûtu’l-Mütenevvia (Various Scripts)
Scribe: Hâmid Aytaç (1891-1982) (Berk, Devlet-i Aliyye’den Günümüze Hat Sanatı,
68).
189
Figure 16. Inscribed Shirt
Ottoman Empire, 16th-17th century
On the two sides of the collar a rosette with twelve slices is situated.
The writings comprise of four lines on the chests are surrounded by an arch-like
figure.
On the left the surah of al-Fath (Qur’an, 48) is written, beneath the symbol of the
sandal of the prophet (Nalın-ı Şerif) situates on two sides. (Gordon Winch and
Gregory Blaxell, İslam: İnanç ve İbadet, 388-389).
190
Figure 17. Inscribed Shirt
Ottoman, 16th-17th century
Inscriptions on the arms: The first two verses of the surah of al-Fath are written from
right to left and bottom to top. At the small squares vefks (magic spell) are written.
Beneath them, along the arm the twenty-one verses of surah of al-Hashr surah
(Qur’an, 59) are written.
Inscriptions on the right side: Various verses from the Qur’an are written.
Inscriptions on the left side: Names of four angels Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Azrael
and various verses from the Qur’an are written. (Ibid., 131).
191
Figure 18. Kıta
Safavid, 1560
Script: Nestalik
Scribe: Mir ‘Ali of Herat (Abolala Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts: Selections
from the Art and History Trust Collection, 212).
192
Figure 19. Hüküm of Sultan Selim I Ottoman
Edirne, 6th-15th September, 1518
Script: Divani
Tuğra: “Selīmşāh bin Bayezīd Han el-muzaffer dāimā” (Osmanlı Padişah
Fermanları/Imperial Ottoman Fermans, ed. Ayşegül Nadir, 44).
193
Figure 20. Ferman of Shah Ismail
Safavid, 1504
Script: Talik
Scribe: Fakhri Beyg
Tuğra: “Orders are God’s prerogatives; these are the words of the victorious and
valiant Ismail.”
Seal: “The love of ‘Ali and his progeny had embodied me as my soul, [I who am] the
slave of the king of men [i.e., ‘Ali], Ismail son of Haydar.” (Blair, Islamic
Calligraphy, 152).
194
Figure 21. Mülknāme of Mehmed IV
Ottoman, 9th-17th June 1662
Script: Celi Divani
Tuğra: “Şāh Mehmed bin İbrāhīm Han el-muzaffer dāimā”
(Osmanlı Padişah Fermanları, 95).
195
Figure 22. Letter sent by Shah ‘Abbas to King Charles I of England Safavid, c.1625
Script: Talik (Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, 440).
196
Figure 23. Kıta
Safavid
Script: Nestalik
Scribe: Şâh Mahmûd Nişâburî (d. 1564) (Serin, Hat Sanatı ve Meşhur Hattatlar,
273).
197
Figure 24. Kıta
Safavid, 1610
Script: Nestalik
Scribe: Mir ‘Emād al-Hasani (Mir ‘Emād)
Inscription: “Continually my hopes from God the exalted is that you remain upon the
throne of power and fortune safe from affliction from the evil eye and that the dust of
ill never touch your skirt. [Written by] the poor, miserable sinner ‘Emād al-Hasani,
may [God] pardon his sins and cover his faults.” (trans. Wheeler Thackston)
(Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts, 325).
198
Figure 25. Kıta
Ottoman
Script: Nestalik
Scribe: Şeyhülislam Veliyüddin Efendi (d. 1768) (Serin, Hat Sanatı ve Meşhur
Hattatlar, 290).
199
Figure 26. Kıta
Ottoman
Script: Sülüs and nesih
Scribe: Ağakapılı İsmail Efendi (d. 1706) (Lines in Gold, 158-159).
200
Figure 27. Calligraphic exercise
Herat?, 15th century
At the right-top an Arabic saying, “Blessings coalesce around gratitude” in rika
script by Ahmad al-Rumi. Copies of the phrase by the students of calligraphy
follow. The sheet might be composed at a gathering. (Roxburgh, “”The Eye is
Favored for Seeing the Writing’s Form,” 278).
201
Figure 28. Qur’an
Ottoman
Script: Nesih
Scribe: Ömer bin İsmail (d. 1686) (M. Uğur Derman, Sabancı University Sakıp
Sabancı Museum: Selected Works From the Calligraphy Collection, 78-79).
202
Figure 29. Kıta
Ottoman
Script: Sülüs and nesih
Scribe: Suyolcuzâde Mustafa Eyyubi (1619-1686) (Lines in Gold, 152-153).
203
Figure 30. Album of calligraphic exercises (Müfredât)
Ottoman, late 16th century or later
Script: Divani written in sefine form and siyakat
The volume might be the exercise book of an apprentice secretary in the chancery
who needs to be literate in divani and siyakat scripts. (J. M. Rogers, Empire of the
Sultans, 181).
204
Figure 31. Page from an album of alphabetic exercises (Müfredât)
Ottoman, 1576-7
Scribe: Derviş Mehmed
The large lines: Combinations of ta’ in sülüs
The small lines: Combinations of ‘ayn in nesih (Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, 498).
205
Figure 32. En’am sura from the Qur’an
Ottoman, 1684
Script: Nesih
Scribe: Hafız Osman (1642-1684) (Lines in Gold, 98-99).
206
Figure 33. Two kıtas
Ottoman
Script: Sülüs and nesih
Scribe: Yedikuleli Seyyid Abdullah Efendi (1670-1731) (Lines in Gold, 160-161).
207
Figure 34. Kıta
Ottoman
Script: Sülüs and nesih
Scribe: Eğrikapılı Mehmed Râsim (d. 1756) (Serin, Hat Sanatı ve Meşhur Hattatlar,
146).
208
Figure 35. Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât of al-Juzuli copied by Şerife Emine Safvet
Ottoman Empire, late 18th century
Script: Nesih
Illumination: Ka’bah and the Rawdah (where the prophet and his two companions
Abu Bakr and ‘Umar are buried)
Signed: “Written by Şerife Emine Safvet, daughter of Mustafa Kütahi, the wife of es-
Seyyid Hasan ‘Ayni.” (Nabil F. Safwat, Golden Pages, 207).
209
Figure 36.1. Delâ’ilü’l-hayrât
Ottoman Empire, 1708-1709
Script: Nesih
Right Page: Illustration of a part of the graveyard of Cennetü’l-bâkî in Medina and
the mausoleum of Abbas.
Left Page: Illustration of the tombs of the caliph Osman, prophet Muhammad’s
children and Ayşe. (İslam: İnanç ve İbadet, 119).
210
Figure 36.2. Illustration of the Prophet’s Mosque (Mescid-i Nebevî)
All the details of the mosque are given. The names of the all minarets are written.
Right Page: Illustration of the tomb of the Prophet (known as Ravza-i Mutahhara).
The dome of it is in blue. Under the dome Kelime-i tevhid is written in black. On the
cist outside the mausoleum it is written “the grave of Fatıma” (merkad-ı Fatıma).
Underneath, the pulpit (minber-i şerif) and meeting place (mahfel-i şerif) are
situated. In the middle, a hadith is written: “The area between my house and my
minbar is one of the gardens of Paradise.”
Left Page: The other part of the courtyard is illustrated. Candles are situated at the
four corners. At the right Ma’kad-i Şeyh’ül Harem is situated. A well exists in the
middle. Near the well date palm tree of Fatma (nahl-i Fatıma) and on the left a
domed building called Mahzen-i Zeyt appear. (Ibid., 120).
211
Figure 36.3. Illustration of the city of Medina and its environ.
On the right page Mount Uhud, the graves of those who died at the Battle of Uhud
(625), the mausoleum of Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib, Mount Medina and the castle,
cisterns, the Mosque of the Two Qiblas (Kıbleteyn Mescidi) are seen. (Ibid., 121).
212
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