A Selection from the Millet Manuscript Library, Ali Emiri Efendi and His World is a catalogue prepared for an exhibition of splendid items from the collection of Ali Emiri Efendi, which was organised by the Suna and Inan Kirac Foundation, the Pera Museum and the Istanbul Research Institute. The exhibition ran from 23 January 2007 until 1 July 2007. It was dedicated to the memory of Ali Emiri Efendi (d.1924), an outstanding Ottoman intellectual, poet, historian, biographer, publisher and bibliophile. As the founder of the Millet Manuscript Library in Istanbul (17 April 1916), Ali Emiri Efendi truly deserves this tribute. Through this exhibition, 49 imperial edicts, 31 calligraphic works and 69 manuscripts, selected from the collections of the Library, were presented to the general public for the first time.
The catalogue is bilingual in Turkish and English, and it combines essays on the life and works of Ali Emiri Efendi and detailed illustrations of the exhibited items with notes on the historical and aesthetical values of the selected works. The foreword by Suna and Inan Kirac, ‘On the luminous path of an unconventional man of culture’, is followed by a prelude by Atilla Koc, the Minister of Culture and Tourism, ‘A heroic lover of books and culture: Ali Emiri Efendi’. The opening essay by Ekrem Isin, ‘The portrait of a conservative in the age of Ottoman modernization’, is an insightful introduction to the life and social atmosphere of Ali Emiri Efendi, emphasising his qualifications, particularly as a collector of manuscripts. The second essay, ‘The Library of Ali Emiri Efendi’ by Tuba Cavdar, is about the establishment of the Millet Library, perhaps the greatest personal achievement of Ali Emiri Efendi. ‘Millet Library from the Republic until Today’, the third essay, by Melek Gencboyaci, gives an account on the various stages of the library, and its collaboration with the Suna and Inan Kirac Foundation.
The final and erudite essay by Mubahat S. Kutukoglu, ‘On tughra, firman and berat’, is a thoughtful introduction to the functional and historical background of the tughra ‘the Ottoman imperial monogram’, firman ‘royal decree’ and berat ‘royal diploma’. This article is particularly useful to the English reader as it represents the most detailed paper published in English on this subject. Tribute should be made to the valuable contributions of Ugur Derman, who has written annotated entries for the calligraphic items of this catalogue as well. All these essays provide a wealth of information both for beginners and specialists.
The essays are followed by four separate sections dedicated to firmans, qit'as ‘album pages’, levhas ‘calligraphic panels’ and books. Among the exhibits in the first section is the berat of Suleyman the Magnificent, dated 27 February 1556, it is exceptional in terms of the quality of its courtly illumination and calligraphy. The rest of the decree collection consists of lavishly decorated berats and firmans of Selim II (r. 1566–74), Murad III (r. 1574–95), Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603), Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617), Osman II (r. 1618–1622), Mehmed IV (r. 1648–1687), Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730), Mahmud I (r. 1730–1754), Osman III (1754–1757), Selim III (r. 1789–1808), Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839), Abdulmecid (r. 1839–1861), Abdulaziz (r. 1861–1876), Abdulhamid II (r. 1876–1909), and Mehmed V (r. 1909–1918), that display the evolution of Ottoman royal decrees through centuries.
The following section includes qit'as (album pages) from the collections of Ali Emiri Efendi, penned by leading master Ottoman calligraphers such as Sheykh Hamdullah (d.1520), Dervish Ali (d.1673), Hafiz Osman (d.1698), Seyyid Abdullah of Yedikule (d.1731), Sheker-zade Mehmed Efendi (d.1753), Mehmed Rasim of Egrikapu (d.1756), Sheykh al-Islam Veliyuddin Efendi (d.1768), Ismail Zuhdi (d.1806), and Mahmud Celaleddin (d.1829). Among these works, the qit'a by Sheykh Hamdullah (p.201) is of exceptional beauty. It displays the perfection and fineness acquired by Sheykh Hamdullah in the late fifteenth century, in the styles of naskh and thuluth. The qit'a by Hafiz Osman (p.217), the calligraphy master of Sultan Mustafa II and Sultan Ahmed III, dated 1099 ah/1687 ad documents the golden age of the artist.
In the section devoted to the levhas (panels), the jali thuluth panel composed by Sultan Mahmud II (d.1839) with the zerendud technique (over-laid with gold) is notable. The rest consists of two jali thuluth panels by Mahmud Celaleddin (d.1829), one jali thuluth tawhid panel by Mehmed Hashim (d.1845) and a jali thuluth ‘Allah’ (God) panel by Kadi-asker Mustafa Izzet Efendi (d.1876).
The last section, ‘books’, is a selection of outstanding manuscripts on literature, poetry, medicine, geography, architecture, theology and calligraphy from the Millet Library, including the earliest Turkish dictionary, Diwān-i Lughāt al-Turk, written by Mahmūd al-Qashghāri, between 1072–1074 ad
Sabuncuoglu Sheref al-din b. Ali b. Ilyas's Carrahiyat al-Haniyyah ‘Surgical Operations’, Lokman b. Sayyid Hasan al-Urmawi's Qiyāfat al-Insāniyyah fi Shamāil al-Osmāniyyah ‘Dressing in the Ottoman Tradition’, Ahmed b. Ali b. Mehmed Piri Reis's Kitāb al-Bahri ‘Nautical Geography’, Sā'i Mustafa Chelebi's Tazqirat al-Bunyān (Book of Buildings) are among the highly valuable manuscripts of the Library, which have already been the object of several studies by leading scholars.
It is entirely to the credit of the Suna and Inan Kirac Foundation the Pera Museum that it has made possible this publication of remarkable specimens of calligraphy and scientific manuscripts from these collections. The general reader and interested scholars would otherwise have remained deprived of its riches.
