Abstract:

Zeyrekzāde Emrullāh Meḥmed Efendi is an Ottoman scholar who lived in the second half of the 16th century. In the biographical works, we have limited information about him, however there is quite detailed information about him in his writings and in the marginal notes of some copies of these works that have survived to the present day. This information sheds direct light not only to the biography of Zeyrekzāde, but also to the 16th century Ottoman scholarly tradition, of which he was a part. Indeed, in relation to Zeyrekzāde, this article contains some important details not known to us until now about the many figures of the period such as Taşköprīzāde Aḥmed Efendi, Shayḫ al-Islām Ebussuʿūd Efendi and Birgivī Meḥmed Efendi. Zeyrekzāde was the student of Taşköprīzāde, he obtained ijazāh from Shayḫ al-Islām Ebussuʿūd, he also discussed with Birgivī in an ulama session. In the writing process of this paper, Zeyrekzāde has been only the starting point of a journey whose next stages are unknown to us, however, we have not tried to carry the portrait of Zeyrekzāde that we have at the beginning of the journey to the next stages. On the contrary, the question of who he is has always kept its vitality and gained new meanings at every stage of the journey. We encountered new elements to complete the portrait of Zeyrekzāde, which we search for in every destination. While this enables us to see the reality of Zeyrekzāde’s portrait holistically on the one hand, it also sets an example as to how a historical reality can expand and enlarge depending on an archeological effort on the other hand.