TRANSLATIONS AS EGO-DOCUMENTS: NOTES OF TWO OTTOMAN PHYSICIANS IN THE TURKISH TRANSLATION OF IBN BAYTAR’S KİTAB AL-MUGHNİ

Year 2020, Volume: 25 Issue: 48, 71 - 91, 01.10.2020

M. Fatih Çalışır

Abstract

This article examines the lives and ideas of two seventeenth-century Ottoman physicians, Muhammed b. Ahmed of Edirne and his disciple İbrahim b. Hüseyin Çavuş, as reflected in their notes in the Turkish translation of Ibn Baytar’s Kitab al-Mughni. In these notes, Muhammed b. Ahmed emerges as a Kadızadeli-minded Turkish physician, translator, and a “world traveler” who claimed to have traveled the world for “forty to fifty years.” In contrast, his disciple İbrahim b. Hüseyin Çavuş appears as a religiously moderate Ottoman officer who had a passion for medicine. These notes disclose new interpretive possibilities for early modern Ottoman cultural and medical history and help researchers explore untold stories of several individuals and groups. They reveal details that are often difficult to find in conventional sources and constitute hitherto neglected personal narratives or ego-documents. They also contain new insights into some of the critical events in the period, including the Kadızadeli movement and the 1672 Kamaniçe campaign. Ultimately, these notes remind us of the need in Ottoman studies to scrutinize translations under a new light.

Keywords

Ibn Baytar, Kitab al-mughni, Muhammed bin Ahmed of Edirne, İbrahim bin Hüseyin Çavuş, Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Translations, ego-documents

References

• Adıvar, A. Adnan. Osmanlı Türklerinde İlim, eds. Aykut Kazancıgil and Sevim Tekeli. 4th ed. İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1982.
• Bilkan, Ali Fuat. Fakihler ve Sofuların Kavgası: 17. Yüzyılda Kadızâdeliler ve Sivâsîler. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2016.
• Blake, Stephen P., Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India, 1639-1739. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Cabo Gonzalez, Ana María and Claude Lanly. “Ibn al-Baytar et ses apports à la botanique et à la pharmacologie dans le Kitab al-Ğamï.” Médiévales 33 (1997): 23-39.
• Doğru, Halime. Lehistan’da Bir Osmanlı Sultanı: IV. Mehmed’in Kamaniçe-Hotin Seferleri ve Bir Masraf Defteri. İstanbul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2006.
• Elger, Ralf, and Yavuz Köse, eds. Many Ways of Speaking about the Self: Middle Eastern Ego-Documents in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish (14th-20th Century). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010.
• El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
• Ivanyi, Katharina Anna. “Virtue, Piety, and the Law: A Study of Birgivi Mehmed Efendi’s al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2012.
• İhsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin, and Ramazan Şeşen et al., eds. Osmanlı Tıbbi Bilimler Literatürü Tarihi / History of the Literature of Medical Sciences during the Ottoman Period. İstanbul: IRCICA, 2008.
• İnalcık, Halil with Donald Quataert, eds. An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
• İnbaşı, Mehmet. Ukrayna’da Osmanlılar: Kamaniçe Seferi ve Organizasyonu (1672). İstanbul: Yeditepe Yayınları, 2004.
• İsmail Paşa al-Bağdadi. Hadiyyat al-‘Arifin Asma’ al-Muallifin wa-Athar al-Musannifin, ed. Kilisli Rifat Bilge et al. 2 vols. İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1955.
• İzgi, Cevat. Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim. 2 vols. İstanbul: İz Yayınları, 1997.Kafadar, Cemal. “Self and Others: The Diary of a Dervish in Seventeenth Century Istanbul as First-Person Narratives in Ottoman Literature.” Studia Islamica 69 (1989): 121-50.
• Kara, İsmail. İlim Bilmez Tarih Hatırlamaz: Şerh ve Haşiye Meselesine Dair Birkaç Not. İstanbul: Dergâh Yayınları, 2011.
• Kara, M. Alpertunga, and Ali Haydar Bayat. “İbnü’l-Baytâr Çevirileri ve Tire Nüshası.” VIII. Türk Tıp Tarihi Kongresi – Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler, 16-18 Haziran 2004, Sivas-Divriği, eds. Nil Sarı and Ayşegül D. Erdemir, 271-77. İstanbul: Türk Tıp Tarih Kurumu, 2006.
• Karateke, Hakan T., et al. eds. Disliking Others: Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Pre-Modern Ottoman Lands. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018.
• Kâtip Çelebi. Mîzânu’l-Hak fî İhtiyâri’l-Ehakk: İslam’da Tenkit ve Tartışma Usûlü. Trans. Mustafa Kara and Süleyman Uludağ. İstanbul: Marifet Yayınları, 2001.
• Katip Chelebi. The Balance of Truth. Trans. G. L. Lewis. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1957.
• Kaya, Mahmut. “İbnü’l-Baytâr.” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi 20: 526-527.
• ______. “el-Müfredât.” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi 31: 505-506.
• Kaylı, Ahmet. “A Critical Study of Birgivi Mehmed Efendi’s (d. 981/1573) Works and Their Dissemination in Manuscript Form.” Master’s Thesis, Boğaziçi University, 2010.
• Mangera, Abdur-Rahman. “A Critical Edition of Abu’l-Layth al-Samarqandi’s Nawazil.” PhD diss., University of London, 2013.
• Murphey, Rhoads. “Ottoman Medicine and Transculturalism from the Sixteenth through the Eighteenth Century.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 66 (1992): 376-403.
• Niyazoğlu, Aslı. Dreams and Lives in Ottoman Istanbul: A Seventeenth-Century Biographer’s Perspective. London and New York: Routledge, 2017.Özgören, Reşat. Osmanlılarda Tasavvuf: Anadolu’da Sûfîler, Devlet ve Ulemâ (XIV. Yüzyıl). İstanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 2003.
• Pamuk, Şevket. A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Sariyannis, Marinos. “The Kadizadeli Movement as a Social and Political Phenomenon: The Rise of a ‘Mercantile Ethic’?” Political Initiatives from the Bottom-Up in the Ottoman Empire, ed. A. Anastasopoulos, 263-89. Rethymno: Crete University Press, 2012.
• Sarton, George. Introduction to the History of Science. 3 vols. Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Company, 1931.
• Şakir-Taş, Aziz Nazmi. Adrianopol’den Edirne’ye: Edirne ve Civarında Osmanlı Kültür ve Bilim Muhitinin Oluşumu (XIV.-XVI. Yüzyıl). İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2009.
• Şarkışla, Şeyda. “Mu‘alecat-ı İbn-i Baycar’ın XIII. Yüzyıl Tercümesi (İnceleme-Metin-Dizin) (1b-49a).” Master’s Thesis, Cumhuriyet University, 2013.
• Uçar, Metin, et al., eds. Tercüme-i Müfredât-i İbn Baytar. İstanbul: Sağlık Bilimleri Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2017.
• Vernet, Juan. “Ibn al-Baycar.” The Encyclopedia of Islam New Edition 3: 737.
• Yazar, Sadık. “Anadolu Sahası Klâsik Türk Edebiyatında Tercüme ve Şerh Geleneği.” PhD diss., İstanbul University, 2011.
• Yıldız, Yasemin. “Terceme-i Müfredât-ı İbn-i Baytâr (Giriş-İnceleme-Metin-Dizin).” Master’s Thesis, Sakarya University, 2016.