Abstract
Making History with Books: A Historical Poem Said with Book Names for the Mahmud I Library in Fatih Complex
A historical poem consisting of 52 couplets written by Ahmed Hasib Efendi for Mahmud I Library is examined in this study. There is information about Hasib's life and the library in the introduction part of the article. Periodical chronicles and archive documents are used while giving information about the history of the library and some wrong data in the literature are corrected. Meanwhile dates specified by other poets for the Mahmud I Library are also discussed; the meanings of among those different from the year 1155/1742 which is accepted as the opening of the library are shown. In the main chapter where the poem is examined in detail, the words marked by Hasîb with red-ink (surh) has been arranged as titles in couplet order and explained one by one. The works or authors are tried to be revealed. Futhermore the ones that are thought to be used in the terminology are stated in the relevant sections. It is determined that the poet made use of various literary arts such as double-etendre, exaggeration, simile, reference in his couplets praising Sultan Mahmud I and Grand Vizier Hekimoğlu Ali Pasha by making equivoke with the names of the authors and terms, skillfully established a connection between his poem and the library. The sources to which Hasib mostly referred are works belonging to the field of fiqh in accordance with the qadi profession are determined with the work table generated by the alphabetical order of the marked words. However it is understood that he made references to various works from various fields, especially tafsir, hadith, Arabic language, Sufism and literature, which reflect his competent scholar aspect as a professor and writer working in the field of history and literature. This condition is noteworthy that an Ottoman scholar who lived in the 18th century has some clues about the world of books. Transcription of the text is given at the end of the article.
Keywords
Mahmud I Library, Hasib, Hekimoğlu Ali Pasha, book, gematria.