Whose Science? A Preliminary Study on Kevâkib-i Seb‘a and the Scholar’s Rhetoric

Abstract

The primary aim of this article is to date the treatise known as Kevâkib-i Seb‘a, which describes the Ottoman sciences for a French audience, to 1739 by examining the letters of Charles de Peyssonnel, secretary to the French ambassador in Istanbul, Marquis de Villeneuve. It also draws attention to a remark by the anonymous author of the treatise on the science of geometry and geography. In order to interpret it, the present study seeks to understand how the author of the treatise presents “ilm”, i.e. science/knowledge, and argues that the remark constitutes a contradictory statement to his previous descriptions and reasoning. It comes to the conclusion that this remark can be regarded as a strategy by the author to defend the imagined prestige of the Ottoman Muslim identity.