An Arabic register kept today in Budapest, in the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences under the shelf mark Török F. 59, lists every book in the Ottoman palace library at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The man who compiled it in 908 (1502-03) on the orders of Bayezid II, and had it copied out fair the following year, was the palace librarian Atûfî. Known in the sources as Molla Atûfî, Hayreddin Hızır Efendi or Hızır b. Mahmud el-Atûfî, this scholar was a native of Merzifon who received his learning in Amasya, spent most of his life in Istanbul preaching, teaching and writing, and left more than fifteen works on Qur'anic exegesis, hadith and medicine.

What we know of Atûfî's life is limited to Taşköprizâde's al-Shaqaiq, Mecdî Mehmed Efendi's translation of that work, and the notes in his own manuscripts. Hüseyin Hüsameddin gave him an entry of his own in his Amasya Tarihi and, by reading the note at the end of one of his manuscripts, tried to clear up the confusion surrounding his nisba. His date of birth is unknown; the year of his death is 948 (1541-42), on which the sources agree.

Name and Nisba

In a manuscript from his own hand, Atûfî's full name appears as Hızır b. Mahmud b. Ömer el-Merzifonî el-Atûfî. His honorific was Hayreddin; Atûfî was the name by which he was known in learned circles. The sources give him two different nisbas, the adjective of origin attached to a name. Taşköprizâde's work and Mecdî's translation use "Kastamonî"; Mecdî opens the entry with "Mevlânâ Hayreddin Hızır b. Mahmud b. Ömer Kastamonî, known as Mevlânâ Atûfî." Atûfî himself, however, states in some of his works that he was originally from Merzifon. İsmail Lütfi Çakan, author of the entry in the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, notes that no information has been found on why the Kastamonî nisba was used.

Hüsameddin tries to resolve the question through a manuscript note. At the end of the copy of the Keşfü'l-meşârık registered as no. 230 in the Hacı Selim Ağa Library in Üsküdar he read the following colophon: "Hızır b. Mahmud b. Ömer el-Merzifonî el-Atûfî finished the composition of this work in the middle of the month of Rebiülevvel of the year 946, on a Thursday, at the end of the time of the afternoon prayer." In Hüsameddin's view this note shows clearly that Atûfî was from Merzifon. The Hoca Hayreddin Hızır Efendi known by the Kastamonî nisba was a different man, a teacher of Süleyman the Magnificent, who died in 953 (1546). The existence of two scholars with the same name and honorific seems to have led biographers to confuse them; this explanation, however, is Hüsameddin's interpretation and is not discussed in the other sources. As the TDV entry also notes, this autograph copy runs to 516 folios.

Education in Amasya

The first phase of Atûfî's scholarly life was spent in Amasya. According to Mecdî's translation, he studied exegesis and hadith with Mevlânâ Bahşî Halîfe, one of the well-known scholars of the time, and the science of rhetoric (ilm-i meânî) with Mevlânâ Abdî of Amasya. Hüsameddin adds Hatîb Kâsım Efendi of Amasya to his teachers. These three were among the leading names of Amasya's learned circle in the second half of the fifteenth century.

Bahşî Halîfe was known in Amasya by the nickname "Akbilek." According to Hüsameddin's records, he was one of the foremost Hanafi scholars and a great exegete, a teacher at the Atabey Madrasa respected among the people. He is buried among the vineyards south of the Şeyh Cû'î vineyards, on the eastern slope of Karaman Mountain to the west of the city, and since 931 (1524-25) this area has been called Akbilek after his nickname. Hatîb Kâsım Efendi belonged to a family descended from Halfet Gazi; he had been tutor to Bayezid II and to his son Şehzade Ahmed (Prince Ahmed), and died in Ramadan 894 (1489). That Atûfî studied in Amasya with Bayezid's own tutor also helps to explain his later summons to the palace.

In his study of Atûfî, Osman Kara sees him as one of the scholars trained in the madrasas of Amasya who went on to write works in many fields: born in Merzifon, he studied the religious and rational sciences with teachers who taught in the Amasya madrasas. Hüsameddin, too, regards Atûfî's early studies in Amasya with Hatîb Kâsım, Abdî and Bahşî Efendi, and his later burial beside the grave of Hatîb Kâsımzâde Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi of Amasya, as signs of his full belonging to Amasya.

Studies in Istanbul and Tutor at the Palace

After his education in Amasya Atûfî went to Istanbul, where he again studied with the best-known teachers of the day. He learned the principles of jurisprudence from Mevlânâ Hocazâde Muslihuddin Mustafa Efendi of Bursa, jurisprudence and the religious sciences from Efdalzâde Hamîdüddin Efendi, and mathematics and the rational sciences from Kutbüddin Muhammad, the famous mathematician and grandson of Kadızâde-i Rûmî, and received his teaching licence (icazet).

On account of his reputation for learning, Bayezid II appointed him tutor to the palace staff, the pages of the imperial palace. According to Hüsameddin, after being treated in a hurtful way by the stirrup aghas (rikâb ağaları) in this post, he gave up his lessons at the palace and began to teach exegesis and preach in the mosques of Istanbul. When Sultan Bayezid learned of the matter, he assigned him a daily allowance of fifty akçe. The TDV entry gives a different reason for the change: Atûfî left the palace because he judged preaching and teaching exegesis in the mosques to be more useful. Both sources agree that he began his new post at fifty akçe a day.

Librarian to Bayezid II

What makes Atûfî known in international scholarship today is the inventory he prepared for the palace library. The register was compiled on the orders of Bayezid II in 908 (1502-03) and copied out fair in 909 (1503-04). Its only known copy is in Budapest. In this Arabic register the books in the palace library and in the sultans' private collection are arranged by branch of learning; Atûfî wrote two prefaces for it, one in Ottoman Turkish and one in Arabic.

The register attracted scholarly attention through the articles published from 1988 onward by İsmail Erünsal, known for his work on the history of Ottoman books and libraries. After a workshop held at Harvard University in 2014, it was published in Leiden in 2019 in two volumes edited by Gülru Necipoğlu, Cemal Kafadar and Cornell H. Fleischer. The first volume contains twenty-eight essays examining the books and fields of learning in the register; the second contains the transliteration prepared by Himmet Taşkömür and Hesna Ergun Taşkömür and a facsimile of the register.

These studies pay particular attention to Atûfî's classification. Cemal Kafadar and Ahmet Karamustafa note that the Sufism section is the largest single class in the register. Nükhet Varlık writes that the medical section is one of the longest and comes immediately after the religious sciences, which suggests that medicine may have been a subject of special interest to Atûfî. Atûfî's own works on medicine point to the same interest. Kafadar's essay in the same publication examines Bayezid II's patronage and circle and the place in this cultural setting of Amasya, where Bayezid had served as sanjak governor for nearly thirty years; its title is "Between Amasya and Istanbul: Bayezid II, His Librarian, and the Textual Turn of the Late Fifteenth Century."

Some of the manuscripts named in the register are still in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. One of them is a small Qur'an written and illuminated in 890 (1485) in the Herat workshop of the Timurid ruler Husayn Bayqara, bearing the almond-shaped seal of Bayezid II (H.S. 4). This manuscript is counted among the finest works recorded in Atûfî's register and must have been sent from Herat as a gift to Bayezid no more than fifteen years after its completion.

Years as a Preacher and Eyüp

Atûfî spent his later years teaching and preaching in the mosques of Istanbul. According to Hüsameddin, under Süleyman the Magnificent he became preacher of the Eyüp Mosque, and his daily pay rose to eighty akçe. Later he gave up this post as well, withdrew to his home, and devoted himself to writing books until the end of his life. The opening pages of his works contain words of praise and prayer for Bayezid II and other Ottoman sultans.

Atûfî died in Eyüp in 948. The TDV entry gives the date of death as 948/1541, Osman Kara as 948/1542; since the Hijri year 948 ran from April 1541 to April 1542, either Gregorian year is possible. According to Mecdî, he was buried at Eyüp (Abu Ayyub al-Ansari), near his own house, close to the grave of the son of Hatîb Kâsım. Hüsameddin states that this was Hatîb Kâsımzâde Mevlânâ Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi of Amasya; Atûfî was thus laid to rest beside the son of his teacher from Amasya.

In his translation Mecdî describes Atûfî as a scholar accomplished in the literary sciences, in rhetoric and eloquence, and as a gnostic versed in the subtleties of the Qur'an in exegesis. He says that Atûfî wrote glosses on the Kashshaf and a sound commentary on the Mashariq, and besides these a book on medicine and many treatises on theology (kalam). According to Mecdî's supplement, he also wrote a treatise on dream interpretation titled Mir'âtü'r-rü'yâ.

Works

Most of Atûfî's works are commentaries and glosses. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam names seven of his fifteen or so works; Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir lists twelve in his Osmanlı Müellifleri, and Ali Rıza Karabulut records eighteen with their manuscript copies in his catalogue of manuscripts.

His most important work in hadith is the Keşfü'l-meşârık, a commentary on the Mashariq al-anwar al-nabawiyya, in which Radi al-Din al-Saghani gathered the hadiths found in both the Sahih of al-Bukhari and that of Muslim. The 516-folio autograph copy is the one in the Hacı Selim Ağa Library whose colophon Hüsameddin read. From this commentary Atûfî made his own selection and turned it into a separate book titled el-Enzâr fî şerhi ba'zi'l-ehâdîs ve'l-âsâr. His el-Cevheretü'l-cinâniyye fî mesâili'l-îmâniyye, on questions of faith, is in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library. No copy of the Mir'âtü'r-rü'yâ, a commentary on the hadith about seeing the Prophet in a dream, had been found when the TDV entry was written in 1991; Kara, however, points to a copy of the Mir'âtü'r-rü'yâ fi't-ta'bîr on dream interpretation in the Beyazıt State Library, Veliyyüddin Efendi collection (no. 3546, fols. 181a-184b).

First among his medical works is the Ravzü'l-insân fî tedâbîri'l-ebdân, devoted to the commentary of hadiths concerning medicine (Süleymaniye Library, Fatih, no. 3569). Kara adds the Kitâbü'l-utâs, the Hıfzü'l-ebdân, the Zahru'l-atşân on prophetic medicine, and an Akrabâdîn, or pharmacopoeia. Beyond these he wrote commentaries on al-Busiri's Qasidat al-Burda, on the Isagoge in logic and on the Tuhfat al-Shahidi, and a gloss on the opening part of al-Jurjani's Sharh al-Mawaqif. Of the treatise on ethics and admonition that Hüsameddin names "Akabât," one copy is in the Amasya Provincial Public Library (no. 1871) and another is registered in the Süleymaniye Library under the title Necâtü'l-akabât.

Glosses on Qur'anic Exegesis

Atûfî wrote glosses on two works of exegesis that were taught as textbooks in Ottoman madrasas. His gloss on al-Zamakhshari's al-Kashshaf covers the part from Sura al-Naba' to the end and is in the Şehid Ali Paşa collection of the Süleymaniye Library. His Mir'âtü't-te'vîl, a gloss on al-Baydawi's Anwar al-tanzil, survives in three copies: Damad İbrahim Paşa (no. 215, 118 folios), Topkapı Palace, Ahmed III (no. 146, 161 folios) and Hacı Beşir Ağa (no. 25, 138 folios).

At the end of the work Atûfî himself explains why he wrote it. After forty years of study in the rational and transmitted sciences, especially Arabic morphology and syntax, he had been adding explanations in his sermons and lessons so that al-Baydawi's interpretations of certain verses could be understood more easily; the students who attended these lessons asked him to put them in writing. In Atûfî's view al-Baydawi sometimes reported the terms of the philosophers, sometimes those of the astronomers, and sometimes the symbolic interpretations of the Sufis with the word "qila" ("it has been said"), thereby hinting that these were weak opinions; in this treatise he set out to dispel the misunderstandings such opinions caused.

According to Kara, Atûfî treats in this gloss ninety-eight verses chosen from thirty-one suras, under sixty-two topics. Foremost among them are questions of creed such as the nature of angels, the martyrs being alive, the relation between dreams and prophethood, the manner of revelation, the nature of the soul and the appointed term of life. Alongside stories of earlier prophets, such as the meeting of Moses and Khidr and the miracles of Jesus, he offers interpretations of his own, as a scholar living two and a half centuries after al-Baydawi, on subjects such as the creation of the heavens and the earth, the wisdom in the creation of mountains, the jugular vein, the circulation of the blood and reproduction. His sources include al-Ghazali's Tahafut al-falasifa, al-Zamakhshari, Abu Hafs al-Nasafi, Abu'l-Barakat al-Nasafi, al-Babarti and al-Saghani; he also refers to his own Ravzü'l-insân and Keşfü'l-meşârık.

Ties with Merzifon and Amasya

Atûfî's connection with Amasya is documented on three points. The first is his nisba: in the colophon he wrote himself he calls himself "el-Merzifonî," and Merzifon is a town neighbouring Amasya, closely tied to it throughout its history. The second is his education: his first teachers, Bahşî Halîfe, Mevlânâ Abdî and Hatîb Kâsım, were scholars who taught in the madrasas of Amasya. The third is his grave: at Eyüp he was buried beside the son of his teacher from Amasya. This bond also brings Atûfî close to the learned circle that formed around Bayezid II during his years as a prince in Amasya; that a scholar from Merzifon who studied with Bayezid's tutor Hatîb Kâsım should, years later, put the same sultan's library in order is one example of the scholarly continuity between Amasya and Istanbul.

Chronology

1489 (Ramadan 894): Hatîb Kâsım Efendi, one of Atûfî's teachers in Amasya, dies.

1502-03 (908): On the orders of Bayezid II, Atûfî compiles the inventory of the palace library.

1503-04 (909): The inventory is copied out fair; its only known copy is today in Budapest.

1539 (mid-Rebiülevvel 946): He completes the Keşfü'l-meşârık (colophon of the Hacı Selim Ağa Library copy).

1541-42 (948): He dies in Eyüp and is buried near his house.

2019: The palace library inventory is published in two volumes with its transliteration and facsimile.

Bibliography

The following sources were used for this article:

Online sources