Late Ottoman Translations of Ibn Khaldun

Episode 316

with Kenan Tekin

hosted by Chris Gratien

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Among the many important medieval texts written in Arabic, few have received more attention from scholars in Europe than The Muqaddimah, an introduction to history by the 14th-century North African writer Ibn Khaldun. In this episode, we explore another of arena for reception of Ibn Khaldun, the Ottoman Empire, with our guest Kenan Tekin. We examine Ottoman translations of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah, especially that of the 19th-century statesman and scholar Ahmet Cevdet. In our discussion of Cevdet's translation of and commentary on Ibn Khaldun's work, we explore the intellectual engagement of Ottoman Tanzimat-era thinkers with ideas from the past centuries of Islamicate scholarship and consider Cevdet's late Ottoman work as an early example of writing about the history of science.

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Contributor Bios

Kenan Tekin is a research assistant at Yalova University. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 2016. His research interests include history and philosophy of science and religion, Ottoman and Islamic intellectual history, and transformations from manuscript to print culture.

Chris Gratien holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University's Department of History and is currently an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. His research focuses on the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. He is currently preparing a monograph about the environmental history of the Cilicia region from the 1850s until the 1950s.

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Credits

Episode No. 316
Release Date: 15 June 2017
Recording Location: Harvard University
Audio editing by Chris Gratien
Music: Lili Labassi - Mazal Haye Mazal; Harmandali - Recep Efendi, Cemal Efendi; Katibim (Uskudar'a Gider iken) - Safiye Ayla
Special thanks to Kara Günes for permission to use the composition "Istanbul"
Images and bibliography courtesy of Kenan Tekin

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Images

Ahmed Cevdet Pasha (1822-1895). Source: wikipedia / archive.org

Pirizade’s preface to his translation of the first five chapters of the Muqaddimah (digitized by Google)

First page of Ahmed Cevdet Pasha’s translation of the sixth chapter (digitized by Google)

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Select Bibliography

Primary Sources

Ahmed Cevdet. Terceme-i Mukaddime-i İbn Haldun. Istanbul: Takvimhane-i Amire, 1858.

Ahmed Cevdet and Cavid Baysun. Tezâkir IV. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1991.

Ahmet Midhat, Fatma Aliye, Fatma Samime İnceoğlu, and Zeynep Berktaş. Fazıl ve Feylesof Kızım : Fatma Aliye’ye Mektuplar. Istanbul: Klasik, 2011.

Fatma Aliye. Ahmed Cevdet Paşa ve Zamanı. Dersaadet: Kanaat Matbaası, 1913.

Ibn Khaldun. Al-Muqaddima. Ed. Abdesselam Cheddadi. al-Dar al-Bayda, 2005.

Ibn Khaldun, and Charles Issawi. An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections from the Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406). Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 2008.

Ibn Khaldun, and Franz Rosenthal. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History; in Three Volumes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1967.

Ibn Khaldun, Franz Rosenthal, and N J. Dawood. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History.2015. [Abridged edition.]

Ibn Khaldun, Pîrîzâde, Ahmed Cevdet, and Yavuz Yıldırım. Mukaddime: Osmanlı Tercümesi. Vefa, Istanbul: Klasik, 2008.

Kâtip Çelebi. Kashf al-Ẓunūn. Lebanon: Dar al-Kotob al-Ilmiya, 2008.

Secondary Sources

Alatas, Syed Farid. Ibn Khaldun. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Ardic, Nurullah. "Beyond 'science As a Vocation': Civilisational Epistemology in Weber and Ibn Khaldun." Asian Journal of Social Science. 36.3 (2008): 434.

Azmeh, Aziz. Ibn Khaldūn in Modern Scholarship: A Study in Orientalism. London: Third World Centre for research and Publishing, 1981.

Berkes, Niyazi. The Development of Secularism in Turkey. Montreal: McGill, 1964.

Chambers, Richard Leon. 1968. “Ahmed Cevdet Paşa the Formative Years of an Ottoman Transitional.” Ph.D. Diss. Princeton: Princeton University.

Chambers, Richard L. “The Education of a Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Alim, Ahmed Cevdet Paşa.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 4, no. 4 (October 1, 1973): 440–464.

Fleischer, Cornell H. “Royal Authority, Dynastic Cyclism, and "Ibn Khaldunism" in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Letters.” Journal of Asian and African Studies. 18 (1983): 198-220.

Fındıkoğlu, Ziyaeddin Fahri. “Türkiye’de Ibn Haldunizm,” in Köprülü, Mehmed F, Dušan Stefan, Yasawi Ahmad, and al-Dīn F. A. Rashid. 60. Doğum Yılı Münasebetiyle Fuad Köprülü Armağanı = Mélanges Fuad Köprülü. Istanbul: Yalçın Matbaası, 1953.

Johnson, Steve A. "The ‘umranic Nature of Ibn Khaldūn's Classification of the Sciences." The Muslim World. 81 (1991): 254-261.

İbn Haldun: Özel Sayısı 1-2. İslam Araştırmaları Dergisi. İstanbul: İSAM, 2006.

İhsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin. Mısır'da Türkler Ve Kültürel Mirasları: Mehmed Ali Paşa'dan Günümüze Basılı Türk Kültürü Bibliyografyası Ve Bir Değerlendirme. Istanbul: İslâm Konferansı Teşkilâtı, İslâm Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi, 2006.

İhsanoğlu, Ekmeleddin. ed. Osmanli İlmî ve Meslekî Cemiyetleri: 1. Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basimevi, 1987.

İpşirli, Mehmet. “Lâle Devri'nde Teşkil Edilen Tercüme Heyetine Dâir Bazı Gözlemler” in Osmanlı İlmî ve Meslekî Cemiyetleri, ed. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Istanbul 1987, pp. 33-42.

Kuran, Ercüment. “Ottoman Historiography of the Tanzimat Period.” in Historians of the Middle East, eds. B. Lewis and P. M. Holt (1962).

Lewis, Bernard. “Ibn Khaldun in Turkey.” In Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East. Chicago: Open Court, 1993.

Lawrence, Bruce B. Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1984.

Lawrence, Bruce B. “Ibn Khaldun & Islamic Reform.” African and Asian Studies. 18.3 (1983): 221-240.

Mahdi, Muhsin. Ibn Khaldun's Philosophy of History: A Study in the Philosophic Foundation of the Science of Culture. London: Routledge, 2016.

Neumann, Christoph K, and Meltem Arun. Araç Tarih Amaç Tanzimat: Tarih-i Cevdet'in Siyasi Anlamı. Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2000.

Neumann, Christoph K. “Ahmed Cevdet Paşa”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 18 May 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_22786>

Özdalga, Elisabeth. Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

Schmidt, Nathaniel. Ibn Khaldun: Historian, Sociologist and Philosopher. Lahore: Universal Books, 2000.

Şentürk, Recep. "Special Focus: Ibn Khaldun." Asian Journal of Social Science. 36 (2008): 365-697.

Tanpınar, Ahmet Hamdi. XIX. Asır Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi. Istanbul: İbrahim Horoz Basımevi, 1956.

Tekin, Kenan. “Reforming Categories of Science and Religion in the Late Ottoman Empire,” Ph.D. Diss. New York: Columbia University, 2016.

Türker, Ömer. “Mukaddime’de Aklî İlimler Algısı: İbn Haldûn’un “Bireysel Yetenekler Teorisi.” İslam Araştırmaları Dergisi 15 (2006): 33-50.

Yalçınkaya, M A. Learned Patriots: Debating Science, State, and Society in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Empire. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Yıldırım, Yavuz. “Mukaddime’nin Osmanlı Dönemi Türkçe Tercümesi.” DÎVÂN İlmî Araştırmalar, 21 (2006/2): 17-33.