A Newly Found Work Of Sadrazam Lutfî Paşa (d.1564): Rısāle-i Cevāhı̇r-i Islām And Its Anonymızed Copies

Abstract

Lütfî Pasha (d.1564) was a versatile statesman, intellectual, scholar, and master of prose who served as grand vizier in the Ottoman state and was both accepted and dismissed. Known for his works Tevârih-i Âl-i Osmân and Âsaf-nâme, Lütfî Pasha wrote 24 works in Arabic and Turkish. Three of them are works of the catechism genre. In this article, a newly discovered work of his, which has not been mentioned in any source before, is brought to light.

The title of this work is Hāẕā Risāle-i Cevāhir-i Islām, and the only copy of it that we have been able to identify is found in Bursa İnebey Library, General Collection, No. 2391/7, in the leaves 78b-88a of a 108-page majmua. The treatise, which is thought to have been written between 1553 and 1564, is a brief catechism book written in the question-and-answer style of “if they ask... say”. This 16th century treatise which is one of the first examples of a catechism, has a very important feature. It has been seen that the work became anonymous from the 17th century onwards and formed the basis of the tradition of the concise catechism written in the question-and-answer method called Cevâhir-i Islâm. In our study, information about 93 manuscript copies of Lütfî Pasha’s ilmihâl registered in manuscript libraries is given, and how an anonymous tradition emerged in the light of some evidence is revealed. In addition to Lütfî Pasha’s work, one of these anonymous manuscripts has also been transcribed and some observations and evaluations have been made on the subject. In addition to Lütfî Pasha’s work, one of these anonymous copies has also been transcribed, and some determinations and evaluations have been made on the subject. This study draws attention to Lütfî Pasha, one of the common denominators of history, religion and literature, and contributes to the aforementioned fields.