Ordinary and Extraordinary Ottoman Scholar Types in Fifteenth-Century Edirne as Seen in Taşköprüzâde's <em>Şekâ'iku'n-Nu‘mâniyye fî ‘Ulemâ'i'd-Devleti'l-‘Osmâniyye</em> and Mecdî's <em>Hadâ'iku'ş-Şekâ'ik</em>

Abstract

Based on data from the vitas of sixty-one major representatives of the Ottoman cultural milieu, who spent some or most of their professional careers in fifteenth-century Edirne, the following article aims to construct drafts of scholar profiles, common for the entire Devlet-i ‘Aliyye-i ‘Osmaniyye (Sublime Ottoman State). The two primary sources, ‘İsâm ad-Dîn Taşköprüzâde’s biographical anthology Şekâ ’iku ’n- Nu‘mâniyye fî ‘Ulemâ’i’d-Devleti’l-‘Osmâniyye and its supplemented Ottoman translation, Mecdî Çelebi’s Hadâ’iku’ş-Şekâ’ik, contain hundreds of biographies organized in chronological layers in accordance with the reigns of the Ottoman sultans. For this study only the five layers corresponding to the sultanates of Bayezid I, Mehmed I, Murad II, Mehmed II, and Bayezid II have been “excavated.” In order to reflect the scholars’ mentalities and, occasionally, establish parallels with the lifestyles of their counterparts, this study analyzes the epoch of the scholars together with their life stories, developing a commentary on the ordinariness and extraordinariness of different scholar types.