“The place of Qur'anic verses used in Ottoman chronicles in our historiography (16th and 17th century)”

KADİR ERBİL

Abstract Of Title

Ottoman chronicles give data about the religious, ethical, economic or social structures of that date besides the historical information. They mention many Qur'anic verses and hadiths as well in narrating events in order to justify and/or confirm actions of the Ottoman sultans based on the belief that the sultans are the shadow and the caliph of God on the earth (referring to the verse 165 of the sixth chapter of the Qur'an). Thus, sultans' bad or good acts were tried to be based on a religious ground. Authors of the Ottoman history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries or before, are very much aware of the Qur'an and hadith and they could just use related verses or hadiths in a consistent whole and in a literary fashion. In some sources, verses of jihad were used so much that the reader could had thought that s/he was reading a Qur'anic exegesis. Authors have dealt with the incidents of the past related in the Qur'an and hadiths in a new approach and drew driving lessons for the subsequent generations. It can be said that there are two main reasons why the authors of the chronicles had used the Qur'anic verses in their works: First, authors of history were knowledgeable people who had a wealthy cultural background in different disciplines. They were mostly, especially aware of Islamic sciences such as exegesis, hadith and Islamic jurisprudence because of the education they got. Second, to mention verses and hadiths was a traditional pattern in classical literature and hence it is expected for history writers to follow this pattern as well. In this study, we tried to examine the interpretations mentioned in the classical exegesis literature of the verses used in the chronicles after classifying them. Keywords: History of Islam, Ottoman Historicism, Ottoman Chronicles, War, Qur'anic Verse, Exegete, History.

Information Of Title

Lnaguage: Turkish - Type: Thesis - Number of pages: 482 - Date: 2020 - Country: TR