Envarü'l-aşikin

This volume contains the Envarü'l-aşikin, a didactic work on religion and Sufism. It was authored by the renowned scholar and Sufi Ahmed Bican (died after 870 AH/1466 CE). Along with his brother Yazıcıoğlu Mehmed Efendi (died 855 AH/1451 CE), Ahmed Bican was among the most popular vernacular religious writers and thinkers of the early Ottoman period. Both were educated by their father, Yazıcı Salih (died after 826 AH/1422-3 CE), and were disciples of the founder of the Bayramiye order, Hacı Bayram-ı Veli (died 833 AH/1429-30 CE). Ahmed Bican's Envarü'l-aşikin is a free translation of his brother Mehmed's Arabic-language work titled Maghārib al-zamān, a broad didactic work on religion and Sufism. In fact, Ahmed had initially encouraged his brother to put pen to paper on this subject, and after completing the Maghārib, Mehmed in turn requested Ahmed to produce an Ottoman Turkish translation. Ahmed obliged by composing the Envarü'l-ʿaşikin, which he did so between 850 AH/1446 CE and Muharrem 855 AH/February 1451 CE in Gelibolu (Gallipoli). Mehmed later rewrote and expanded the sections of the Maghārib on the Prophet Muhammad, producing his famous Muhammediye in 853 AH/1449 CE. Together, the Envar and the Muhammediye went on to become two of the most widely owned, read, and memorised books in the Ottoman Empire. The Envar provides information on religion derived from popular commentaries on the Quran, Bible, and Torah. It consists of 5 bablar divided in turn into fasıllar. The first bab is on the order of existence, heavenly and earthly beings, and the divine wisdom and secrets of their creation. The second bab is the longest, and narrates the stories of a significant number of prophets beginning from Adam, though spending longest on the life of Muhammad. The third bab discusses the angels and the world of the unseen. The fourth bab begins with eschatology and moves on to the rulings of belief and worship, ending with the virtues of various devotional practices. The subject of the fifth bab is paradise, its people, and the events that will take place there. The Envar holds an important place in the history of Turkish prose by virtue of its linguistic and stylistic features. The vowel points, or harekeler, are generally marked in manuscripts and prints of the Envar (including the present manuscript), which makes it especially valuable for determining the phonetic features of fifteenth century Ottoman Turkish. It was also one of the first Ottoman Turkish works to be translated into European languages. Though undated, the present copy was produced in the tenth century AH/sixteenth century CE at the latest. It is therefore significant as an early, fully vocalised copy.

Available for research unless otherwise stated

Acquired from Mr A Al Shakri through Mr T Jalal on 28/10/2002

For another copy of the Envar, see Add MS 7874. See Or 16122 for Ahmed Bican's translated extracts of the Arabic cosmographical treatise Acaibü'l-Mahlukat. On Ahmed Bican see Hatice Aynur, 'Ahmed Bican, Yazıcıoğlu,' in EI3 (dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27278) and Amil Çelebioğlu, 'Ahmed Bîcan,' TDVİA 2:49-51. On the Envar, see Mustafa Uzun, 'Envârü'l-âşıkîn,' TDVİA 11:258-60. For a study of the Yazıcıoğlu family, see Carlos Grenier, The Spiritual Vernacular of the Early Ottoman Frontier. The Yazıcıoğlu Family (Edinburgh University Press, 2021). On Yazıcıoğlu Mehmet, see Mustafa İsmet Uzun, 'Yazicioğlu Mehmed Efendi,' TDVİA, 43:362-363 and Franz Babinger, 'Yāzid̲j̲i-Og̲h̲lu,'' in Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition. On his thought, İlyas Çelebi, 'Yazicioğlu Mehmed Efendi,' TDVİA, 43:363-364. On his Muhammediyye, see Mustafa İsmet Uzun, 'Muhammediyye,' TDVİA, 30:586-587. For copies of the Muhammadiye see: Or 1040; Or 5092; Or 13358; Or 13906; Add. MS 6536 (part of text); Or 16234; Or 16265; and Or 16266.

The book was published many times in Istanbul (Tabıhane-i Amire, 1261 AH/1845 CE), Kazan (1278 AH/1861 CE) and Bulak (1300 AH/1883 CE). Some of these prints are vocalised, while the Kazan print is illustrated. János Hazi (died after 1630 CE), the translator and secretary of Gabriel Bethlen (died 1629 CE), the prince of Transylvania, translated the text into Hungarian in 1624 CE and it was printed in 1626 CE in Kassa (today's Košice, in eastern Slovakia). For a more recent edition, see Abdullah Uğur, 'Yazıcıoğlu Ahmed Bîcân Efendi ve Envârü'l- şıkîn adlı eseri (inceleme-metin)' (Ph.D. diss. Marmara University, Istanbul 2019). See also Aşıkların Nurları, edited by Ahmet Kahraman (Istanbul, 1973), which contains supplementary explanations about verses, hadiths, and other religious information in the Envar.