Detection of Haydar al-Harawī’s Sharh al-Kashhāf dedicated to Mehmed I and the data presented in this work in the literature, biography and history

Abstract

Burhān al-Dīn Haydar al-Harawī is one of the scholars invited from the East to the Ottoman lands during the foundation period of the Ottoman State. al-Harawī, who was reported to come to Bursa with the invitation of Sultan Mehmed I, came to prominence as a distinguished scholar in the ten-year time period he spent here and taught important Ottoman scholars. Although it is reported by biographers such as Tashkuprīzādah and Haji Khalīfah that al-Harawī wrote a gloss/sharh on al-Taftāzānī’s commentary on al-Kashshāf, the manuscripts of this work have not been determined until now. Thus, contemporary studies on al-Kashhāf literature in this regard have been satisfied with the information given in biographical sources. A manuscript of this work, which we identified as belonging to Haydar al-Harawī, reveals the place of al-Harawī in al-Kashhāf literature and besides that, it presents important data in the tafsīr glosses, al-Harawī’s biography and Ottoman history. In this article, after briefly mentioning the biography of al-Harawī, the discovered manuscript will be introduced and then the information contained in this work on literature, biography and history will be evaluated. During these evaluations, it will be especially mentioned that Haji Khalīfah uses this work as a source in many of the explanations he made.