Aḥmedī’s Intellectual World in the Context of the Philosophy–Literature Relationship
In Ancient Greece, regarded as the birthplace of philosophy, the earliest philosophicalreligious
discourses are attributed to the Homer and Hesiod. In later periods, Aristotle’s
Rhetoric and Poetics, which were involved into his logical corpus, stand as the most evident
examples of this relationship. During the Middle Ages, the fact that Islamic philosophers
expressed their views on various subjects through literary genres such as poetry and novel
demonstrates the close connection between these two fields. For instance, figures in Islamic
thought such as Abū ‘Alā’ al-Ma’arrī and Omar Khayyām, who articulated their ideas through
verse, and Ibn Sina, who initiated the genre of the philosophical novel which is a symbolic
tale with Ḥayy ibn Yaqzān, along with the vibrant continuation of this tradition in later
periods, hold distinct importance in illustrating the relationship between philosophy and
literature. In Ottoman thought as well, we observe that thinkers with strong literary aptitudes
penned their thoughts on metaphysics, kalam, astronomy, history, logic, and many other
fields in the form of poetry and mathnawi. The most significant representative of this in the
14th and 15th centuries is Aḥmedī. A versatile thinker and poet, Aḥmedī demonstrated his
competence in philosophical sciences through works written in a literary style.
This study addresses the question of where Turkish thought can be positioned within the
context of the philosophy-literature relationship by focusing on Aḥmedī, evaluating the
thinker’s views across various fields. Aḥmedī’s world of thought is examined across various
disciplines such as Language-Literature, Philosophy, Sufism-Ethics, Religious Sciences, and
History in approximately twenty distinct and valuable articles.
The Introductory section includes articles titled “The Philosophy-Literature Relationship,”
“Where and How to Seek Turkish Thought,” and “Aḥmedī’s Life and Understanding of
Education.”
The Language-Literature section contains titles such as: “Intermediate Stops in the Mathnawi:
Turkish Ghazals in Aḥmedī’s Jamshīd u Khurshīd Mathnawī,” “Three Parallels (Nazire) of
Aḥmedī’s Ghazal with the Redif ‘Ey Dost’ in the Parwana Beg Journal,” “The ‘Reason for
Composition’ (Sebeb-i Telif) Sections in Aḥmedī’s Iskandar-nāma and Other Iskandar-nāmas in
Turkish Literature,” and “Aḥmedī’s Works on the Arabic Language.”
The Philosophy section includes articles titled: “Aḥmedī’s Conception of Knowledge,”
“Aḥmedī and the Iskandar-nāma Tradition: The Construction of Language, Wisdom, and
Political Thought in the Early Ottoman Period,” “An Analysis of Aḥmedī’s Manzûme-i
Hikemiyye in the Contexts of Metaphysical and Religious Cosmology,” and “Aḥmedī’s
Approach to Natural Issues in Tarwīḥ al-arwāḥ”.
The Sufism-Ethics section features titles such as: “Re-reading the Iskandar-nāma as a
Normative Ethical Text,” “Sufi Language in Aḥmedī: Stages of the Self (Nefs) and Purification
of the Self (Tezkiye-i Nefs),” and “Spiritual Diseases in the Divan of the Physician (Hekîm) and
Sage (Hakîm) Poet Aḥmedī.”
In the Religious Sciences section, the articles include: “The Issue of the Existence and
Oneness of God in Aḥmedī’s Iskandar-nāma,” “Quranic Citations in Aḥmedī’s Iskandar-nāma,”
and “Ahmedî and his Mi’rāj-nāma.”
The History section contains articles titled: “The Early Ottoman Reception of the Hellenic,
Persian, Islamic, and Christian Alexander Narrative Tradition: Aḥmedī’s Iskandar-nāma,”
“Witnessing History with the Iskandar-nāma: The Content of the First Poetic Dâsitân-ı Tevârih-i
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Mülûk-ı Âl-i ‘Osman,” and “Cosmic Geography in Aḥmedī’s Iskandar-nāma: The Perception of
Earth and Power in the Early Ottomans.”
At the end of the study, a current bibliography regarding Aḥmedī is included.
Keywords: The relationship between philosophy and literatüre; Turkish thought; Aḥmedī;
Iskandar-nāma; Aḥmedī’s Divan; Jamshid u Khurshid; Tarwīḥ al-arwāḥ; Manẓūme-i
Ḥikemiyye; Dāsitān-ı Tewārīḥ-i Mulūk-ı Âl-i ‘Othmān; Bedāyiʿu’s-siḥr fî ṣanāyiʿi’ş-şiʿr; Mirqāt
al-adab; Mīzān al-adab; Mi ‘yār al-adab; Mi’rāj-nāma; Knowledge; Science; Classification of
Sciences; Literature; Ghazal; Poetry; Philosophy; Sufism; Ethics; Religious Sciences; Tafsir;
Kalām; History; Geography; Astronomy.