Ahmed Bican Yazıcıoğlu
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Ahmed Bican Yazıcıoğlu (? – c. 1466) was an Ottoman author most noted for the
cosmography The term cosmography has two distinct meanings: traditionally it has been the protoscience of mapping the general features of the cosmos, heaven and Earth; more recently, it has been used to describe the ongoing effort to determine the large-sca ...
'' Dürr-i Meknûn'', the authorship of which is usually attributed to him.


Biography

Little is known of Yazıcıoğlu's life. His earliest biography was written by
Mustafa Âlî Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî bin Ahmed bin Abdülmevlâ Çelebi (b. 28 April 1541 – d. 1600) was an Ottoman historian, bureaucrat and major literary figure. Life and work Mustafa Ali was born on 28 April, 1541 in Gelibolu, a provincial town on the ...
. Yazıcıoğlu came from a literary family. His father Salih Yazıcı, who moved to
Gelibolu Gelibolu, also known as Gallipoli (from el, Καλλίπολις, ''Kallipolis'', "Beautiful City"), is the name of a town and a district in Çanakkale Province of the Marmara Region, located in Eastern Thrace in the European part of Turkey on t ...
( Gallipoli) before Ahmed was born, and Ahmed's older brother Mehmed Yazıcıoğlu were writers before him and are both still well known. Ahmed Bican Yazıcıoğlu and his brother were pupils of Hacı Bayram-ı Veli who founded the Bayramiyye order. They considered it their
dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from fa, درویش, ''Darvīsh'') in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage i ...
duty to spread knowledge among the common people. To accomplish this, they wrote in the language of their people, which was Turkish. Ahmed Bican (Yazıcıoğlu just means ''the scribe'') translated and compiled literature using original works from the then dominant scholarly language of Arabic. This religious act of translation has preserved important works for later generations and has caused him to become considered one of the most important figures of Ottoman culture. Besides translations, he also wrote some original works of his own. The famous legend about the founding of
Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...
can be traced back to his ''Dürr-i Meknûn''. Yazıcıoğlu was highly productive as a writer and transcribed a number of popular religious and encyclopedic works. His best known books today are the religious work '' Envârü’l Âşıkîn'' and the ''Dürr-i Meknûn''. He was probably able to accomplish these works by his religious lifestyle. His nickname 'Bican', which means ''the lifeless'', refers to his ascetic
dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from fa, درویش, ''Darvīsh'') in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage i ...
lifestyle. He was an advocate of religious fasting and foregoing sleep. The ''Dürr-i Meknûn'' approaches the world from the Creation according to cosmographic tradition. Details about the heavenly bodies are followed by tales of ancient peoples, prophecies and divine punishments, discourses on stones, images, medicinal plants, mythical creatures, faraway countries, seas and islands with their bizarre inhabitants such as the cynocephali. The author concludes with a chapter about the terrors that await us at the end of the world, including the Islamic
Antichrist In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist (including one plural form)1 John ; . 2 John . ...
: the
Dajjal Al-Masih ad-Dajjal (), otherwise referred to simply as the Dajjal, is an evil figure in Islamic eschatology similar to the Antichrist in Christianity, who will pretend to be the promised Messiah, appearing before the Day of Judgment accordin ...
.


Works

* Envârü’l Âşıkîn (unclear: often 1451 is given, sometimes 1446, 1449, etc.) * Dürr-i Meknûn (year of writing unknown and much disputed) * '' Aca'ibu'l Mahlukat'' (The Wonders of Creation, 1453) * ''Kitabü 'l-müntehã al müstehã ala 'l-fusûs'' (1465), * ''Bostãnü 'l-hakã'ik'' (1466) * ''Cevãhirnãme'' * ''Ravhü 'l-ervãh''


Dürr-i Meknûn

A remarkable passage in the ''Dürr-i Meknûn'' is Yazıcıoğlu's fulminating against the deer- and spring-worshipping by Ottomans, a heathen cult within the empire. Another important passage in this book is a tale about
Kenan Kenan (also spelled Qenan, Kaynan or Cainan) (; ar, كِنَاْنْ, Keynān; grc-x-biblical, Καϊνάμ, Kaïnám) is an Antediluvian patriarch first mentioned in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. In scriptures According to Gen ...
(Ken‘an), one of the sons of Nuh ( Noah). Kenan refuses to join his father in the Ark, and hopes to survive the
Great Flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primaeval ...
in a kind of
diving bell A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which c ...
that he devises himself. God punishes him for his disobedience with a supernatural bladder infection and Ken'an drowns in his urine inside his own contraption.


Legend of the Foundation of Constantinople

The version of the legend of the Town's foundation as Ottomans and Turks know it was coined by Ahmed Bican. According to this tale, Yanko bin Madyan (the name has its origin in a misspelling and or misreading in the Ottoman Turkish writing of the word ‘ Nikomedian’) decided to build the city on a ‘wedge shaped’ plot of land, triangled between two sea arms. To make sure building activities would commence under an auspicious constellation, his
astronomers An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either obse ...
devised a system of poles with bells and cords attached to them to set the army of diggers, masons etc. to work at the same right time. However, a snake snatched by a local stork curled itself around the bird's neck, thus causing it to fall out of the sky against one of the bells, thereby setting on the entire enterprise in the most ominous of hours, that of the planet
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
. Inevitably, the future of the city was to be rife with earthquakes, war and plagues. This legend, partly a clever reworking of already existing elements in Byzantine tales and of Muslim views on
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
reaching from the imperial to the apocalyptic, deeply influenced Ottoman sentiments (quite a few felt the City to be intrinsically alien) and literature on this topic.Cf. Stephane Yerasimos, ''Légende d’ Empire. La fondation de Constantinople et de Sainte-Sophie dans les traditions turques.'' Paris 1990. The grave monuments in
Gelibolu Gelibolu, also known as Gallipoli (from el, Καλλίπολις, ''Kallipolis'', "Beautiful City"), is the name of a town and a district in Çanakkale Province of the Marmara Region, located in Eastern Thrace in the European part of Turkey on t ...
for Ahmed and Mehmed are tourist attractions.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahmed Bican Yazicioglu 1466 deaths 15th-century writers from the Ottoman Empire Year of birth unknown People from Gelibolu