Series | Knowledge Hegemonies in the Early Modern World
Volume 2 | Monograph | Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms

Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms

Ottoman Philosophical Culture and the Court Debate Between Zeyrek (d. 903/1497-98 [?]) and Ḫocazāde (d. 893/1488)

open access | peer reviewed

Efe Murat Balıkçıoğlu - New York University, USA - email

Abstract

The present volume offers a detailed analysis of a fifteenth-century court debate on God’s unicity (tawḥīd), involving the Ottoman scholars Mollā Zeyrek (d. 903/1497-98 [?]) and Ḫocazāde Muṣliḥuddīn Muṣṭafā (d. 893/1488), as a chance to highlight the dynamics of knowledge production at the time: in post-classical Islamic scholarship, an essential element of the process was scholars’ adroitness in synthesizing arguments from differing schools of philosophy and theology – via close readings of past masters. This dialectic unfolded during a period of imperial restructuring, at a time when Sultan Meḥmed II (d. 886/1481) realized his cosmopolitan and universalistic ambitions through his persistent patronage of philosophy and science, a case that is illustrated by his glorious palatine library. The setting, audience, and format of the debate, along with the analyses reveal that the production of knowledge in the early modern Islamic world was intricate, vibrant, and dynamic – not stale or derivative as previously thought. This book attempts at reconstructing the debate through the information found in bio-bibliographical sources, and comments on certain social and cultural aspects of the fifteenth-century Ottoman scholarship. Analyses of lemmata in the plethora of commentaries and glosses reveal that Ottoman scholars could posit numerous and disparate doctrinal positions, each referencing specific texts, through which the scholars gave their own syntheses based on their unique perspectives. This method of scholarly arbitration is called ‘verification’ (taḥqīq) and is exemplified here in Ḫocazāde’s defense and recontextualization of Avicennan philosophy in early Ottoman philosophical theology. The court debate at hand concerns Avicenna’s often-contested ontological formulation, which equaled God’s quiddity/essence to His existence and necessity, a view that went against the theological principle of God’s singularity according to a tradition of Muslim theologians. Ḫocazāde’s defense of the philosophers’ proof demonstrated that one of the senses of the ontological term ‘necessity’ that Avicenna put forth was identical to God’s quiddity/essence, as well as His ‘pure existence’. Having gained the upper hand in the debate by verifying Avicenna’s thesis, Ḫocazāde’s argumentative efforts proved that not only could the philosophers’ claim be reconciled with post-classical Islamic theology, but this proof also held true on their own terms despite Zeyrek’s (and the theologians’) objections.

Keywords Meḥmed II’s imperial patronage • Early modern intellectual history • Quiddity • God’s unicity (tawḥīd) • Necessity • Ottoman philosophy and theology • Scholarly verification (taḥqīq) • Post-classical Islam • Existence • Avicennan philosophy • Culture of court debate • Theory of disputation • Knowledge production

Copyright © 2023 Efe Murat Balıkçıoğlu. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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1 • Introduction
The Agonistic Spirit at the Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Court
March 7, 2023

2 • The Ottoman Age of Scholarly Debates
Cultures of Patronage, Pride, and Merit in Fifteenth-Century Scholarship
March 7, 2023

3 • What the Sources Say
The Sociocultural Context of the Zeyrek-Ḫocazāde Debate
March 7, 2023

4 • The Philosophical Context of the Zeyrek-Ḫocazāde Debate
March 7, 2023

5 • “If Only Necessity Were God’s Quiddity”
Analysis of the Debate
March 7, 2023

6 • Conclusion
Verifying the Truth on the Their Own Terms
March 7, 2023

Appendix
English Translations, Arabic Editiones Principes, and Manuscript Facsimiles
March 7, 2023

DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_book_531
dc.creator	Balıkçıoğlu Efe Murat
dc.title	Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms. Ottoman Philosophical Culture and the Court Debate Between Zeyrek (d. 903/1497-98 [?]) and Ḫocazāde (d. 893/1488)
dc.type	Monograph
dc.language.iso	en
dc.description.abstract	The present volume offers a detailed analysis of a fifteenth-century court debate on God’s unicity (tawḥīd), involving the Ottoman scholars Mollā Zeyrek (d. 903/1497-98 [?]) and Ḫocazāde Muṣliḥuddīn Muṣṭafā (d. 893/1488), as a chance to highlight the dynamics of knowledge production at the time: in post-classical Islamic scholarship, an essential element of the process was scholars’ adroitness in synthesizing arguments from differing schools of philosophy and theology – via close readings of past masters. This dialectic unfolded during a period of imperial restructuring, at a time when Sultan Meḥmed II (d. 886/1481) realized his cosmopolitan and universalistic ambitions through his persistent patronage of philosophy and science, a case that is illustrated by his glorious palatine library. The setting, audience, and format of the debate, along with the analyses reveal that the production of knowledge in the early modern Islamic world was intricate, vibrant, and dynamic – not stale or derivative as previously thought. This book attempts at reconstructing the debate through the information found in bio-bibliographical sources, and comments on certain social and cultural aspects of the fifteenth-century Ottoman scholarship. Analyses of lemmata in the plethora of commentaries and glosses reveal that Ottoman scholars could posit numerous and disparate doctrinal positions, each referencing specific texts, through which the scholars gave their own syntheses based on their unique perspectives. This method of scholarly arbitration is called ‘verification’ (taḥqīq) and is exemplified here in Ḫocazāde’s defense and recontextualization of Avicennan philosophy in early Ottoman philosophical theology. The court debate at hand concerns Avicenna’s often-contested ontological formulation, which equaled God’s quiddity/essence to His existence and necessity, a view that went against the theological principle of God’s singularity according to a tradition of Muslim theologians. Ḫocazāde’s defense of the philosophers’ proof demonstrated that one of the senses of the ontological term ‘necessity’ that Avicenna put forth was identical to God’s quiddity/essence, as well as His ‘pure existence’. Having gained the upper hand in the debate by verifying Avicenna’s thesis, Ḫocazāde’s argumentative efforts proved that not only could the philosophers’ claim be reconciled with post-classical Islamic theology, but this proof also held true on their own terms despite Zeyrek’s (and the theologians’) objections.
dc.relation.ispartof	Knowledge Hegemonies in the Early Modern World
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/978-88-6969-643-5
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.issued	2023-03-07
dc.dateAccepted	2022-08-23
dc.dateSubmitted	2021-09-30
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-644-2/
dc.identifier.issn	2724-1394
dc.identifier.eissn	2724-1572
dc.identifier.isbn	978-88-6969-644-2
dc.identifier.eisbn	978-88-6969-643-5
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
item.fulltext	with fulltext
item.grantfulltext	open
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Avicennan philosophy
dc.subject	Culture of court debate
dc.subject	Early modern intellectual history
dc.subject	Existence
dc.subject	God’s unicity (tawḥīd)
dc.subject	Knowledge production
dc.subject	Meḥmed II’s imperial patronage
dc.subject	Necessity
dc.subject	Ottoman philosophy and theology
dc.subject	Post-classical Islam
dc.subject	Quiddity
dc.subject	Scholarly verification (taḥqīq)
dc.subject	Theory of disputation
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