Abstract
The Ottoman Empire is one of the periods that is not emphasized in hadith history books. Among the reasons, the claim that there was no original work in the Ottoman Empire and that most of the works are in manuscript can be mentioned. However, in order to determine whether they are original or not, the contents of the manuscripts should be analyzed first. Thus, ideas can be made in the fields of hadith and hadith education in the Ottoman Empire and a contribution can be made to the history of hadith by revealing its prominent aspects or deficiencies.
The subject of the study is Qara Khalīl Efendī, one of the 17th-century scholars, and his gloss about the hadith method, which he wrote on Gurānī. Qara Khalīl Efendī was educated in Ottoman madrasahs and worked as a professor there, and he is from within the Ottoman education. At the same time, he has works written in the style of annotation for different fields. He especially improved himself in fields such as logic, etiquette, and Jihat al-Waḥdah. Fanārī's gloss is one of his famous works. Both being a disciple and being in copyright activity indicates that he usually writes his works during the training phase. After being a professor, Qara Khalīl's transition to bureaucratic duties such as a qaḍiʿasker gives information about the relationship between professorship and bureaucracy in Ottoman thought. Qara Khalīl, who has a mudarris, profanity, and bureaucrat personality, is an essential character in terms of the upbringing of the Ottoman ʿilmiyya class, his interests and his goals on the way from being a mudarris to being a qaḍʾasker. In this study, giving place to the life of Qara Khalīl from these aspects is aimed at understanding the Ottoman ʿilmiyya thought. In addition, it was mentioned that the rank of Boyābādī was given to Qara Khalīl, who was from the Aydın region, by mistake.
One of the turning points of the hadith method literature is the Nukhba and its commentary Nuzha works of Ibn Ḥajar. Many glosses, commentaries, and summaries have been made on them. One of the glosses is Gurānī, who lived two centuries after Ibn Ḥajar. Qara Khalīl made a second gloss on the Gurānī text. The gloss, which is in the form of writing and has not been studied; the transfer of the Egyptian scientific heritage (Nuzhah and Gurānī annotations) to the Ottoman Empire is important in terms of the nature of the Ottoman period hadith method writing and the Ottoman understanding of science. The hashiya does not cover all the subjects because it was written up to the subject of mutawātir, which is at the beginning of the hadith methodology. Four texts, Nukhba, Nuzha, Gurānī, and Qara Khalīl, are intertwined in the gloss. At the same time, there are other commentaries and glosses of Nuzha such as Ibn Quṭluboġa. In this respect, the work gives an idea about the debates around Nuzha after Ibn Ḥajar. Discussions consist of topics such as the writing of the Nukhba-Nuzha text, the iʿrāb status of the words in the text, the purpose of hadith science, and the conditions of mutawātir. Qara Khalīl explains the subjects centered on "language" and responds to the discussions about the knowledge of fields such as ṣarf, naḥw, and rhetoric. At this point, he makes use of Nuzha's commentaries, logic and Arabic language work. In these respects, the work gives the impression that it was written to teach students at the educational stage. Explaining each word with grammar aims to teach grammar subjects to students. In addition, in-depth explanations are made on the topics based on grammar issues.
Although language-centered gloss brings up the problem of originality in hadith methodology, it offers different perspectives by using disciplines such as logic, methodology, and the Arabic language. One of these is that the method of hadith has its unique purpose and function to become a "science" within the scope of Jihat al-Waḥdah. Again in the work, it is seen that the discussions on the writing of Noaḥ-Nuzha are based on rhetoric and Arabic language rules.
In the study, first of all, Qara Khalīl's life, scientific and bureaucratic personality will be discussed, and then his work, Ḥāshiya ʾalā Ḥāshiya al-Kurdī ʾalā Sharḥ Nukhba al-Fikar, which he wrote on hadith methodology, will be examined. In this way, it will contribute to forming an idea about the annotation writing in the hadith method of the Ottoman period, based on the work in writing.