Science without Leisure: Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660-1732

337 Pages·2019·28.466 MB·English

by  Harun Küçük

Science without Leisure

Science
—without
Leisure
—

—PRACTICAL NATURALISM
I—N ISTANBUL, 1660–1732
HARUN KÜÇÜK
UNIVERSITY of PITTSBURGH PRESS
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 2020, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-4580-2
ISBN 10: 0-8229-4580-0
Cover art: Qibla indicators, Kandilli MS 198, 36a–b.
Cover design: Alex Wolfe
In memory of Ayfer Küçük (1956–2016),
the kindest person I have ever known.
Residents of Istanbul buy clocks and other curious miscellany
that come from the land of the Franks. And, as these things
work and are of high quality, they take the commodities as an
indication of the Franks’ mastery of the art of medicine and
of the sciences. They believe that the Franks have seen and
cured most of the diseases at their anatomical theaters and
academies. And, they believe Franks have mastered medicine
because of their endless experience with each and every ail-
ment. Let us for a moment assume that this is the case. What
are these highly trained physicians doing here in Istanbul
in the first place? Why are they taking part in the sufferings
of the people here, when they can make a good living at the
hospitals back home?
—GEVREKZADE HAFIZ HASAN (D. 1801),
CHOICEST TREATISE ON EYE SURGERY
Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic
nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human
history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth
of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have
shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art,
religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate
material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of
economic development attained by a given people or during
a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state in-
stitutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on
religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in
the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead
of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.
—FRIEDRICH ENGELS
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Notes on Naming Conventions, Translation,
and Transliteration xv
INTRODUCTION After Science: Ottoman Practical Naturalism 3
CHAPTER 1 Istanbul and Her Sciences 33
CHAPTER 2 Istanbul’s Medreses in the Fifteenth
and Sixteenth Centuries 55
CHAPTER 3 The Ottoman Scholastic Field and
the Sciences 83
CHAPTER 4 The Calendar: Copernicus for Tax Collectors 108
CHAPTER 5 The Recipe: An Annotated Chronology of
New Medicine in the Seventeenth Century 143
CHAPTER 6 Distinction: A Social Critique of
Scientific Taste 167
CHAPTER 7 Like Ants on a Watermelon:
Practical Naturalists Encounter Philosophy 183
CHAPTER 8 Maritime, Mercantile, Sacred:
Empiricism and the Compass 204
CONCLUSION 223
APPENDIX 1 Extract from Tezkireci I˙brahim,
Secencelü’l-Eflak fi Gayeti’l-I˙drak [Mirror of the
Heavens at the Edge of Understanding] (1662) 237
APPENDIX 2 Extract from I˙brahim Müteferrika, Füyuzat-ı
Mıknatısiye [Magnetic Effluvia] (1732) 241
APPENDIX 3 Extract from I˙brahim Müteferrika,
Usülü’l-Hikem fi Nizamü’l-Ümem [Foundations
of Government in Various Social Orders] 244
Notes 249
Bibliography 287
Index 315
viii • Contents
Acknowledgments
It took me three book projects to get to this one. As a trained
Europeanist, I started out by trying to deploy my young-scholar-level
knowledge of intellectual history and of the history of science to ask
whether we could speak of an Enlightenment in the Ottoman Empire.
Then I simply focused on eighteenth-century episodes that I thought I
could passably analyze, which turned into a few short essays and book
chapters. It was not until I turned to the seventeenth century that the
general shape and trajectory of science in the Ottoman Empire began
to gain some clarity. And only in the last few months of my academic
leave in 2016–2017 did I feel a sense of pattern, however much of an
illusion that sense may prove to be. That is, it took me about a decade
to convince myself, and I made mistakes along the way. It felt like
driving uncomfortably fast on a bumpy road. Many people helped
me, accompanied me, and put up with me along the way.
First, I want to thank my advisor, Robert Westman, for his guidance
and patience. My interest in the history of science all started with his
article “The Astronomer’s Role in the Sixteenth Century.” I was lucky
to work with him. He nursed the bad writer and the hasty thinker that
I always have been. And, if it were not for him I would not have had
either the will or the resources to see what to me seemed like a big
project to completion. I would also like to thank Hasan Kayalı, whose
generosity and openmindedness has made my years in San Diego
both edifying and rewarding. The late John Marino, with whom I
spent almost two years discussing early modern European history,
awakened me to social and economic history and generally to how
history is done. Luce Giard has been the patron saint of my work
from the moment we met. I would not know nearly as much about
Aristotelianism and the Jesuits without her. Finally, Frank Biess’s
research seminar gave me the opportunity to think more seriously
about education in modern Turkey. I would also like to thank Tom
Gallant, Naomi Oreskes, Tal Golan, Cynthia Truant, and Steven Eps-
tein. Finally, the late S¸erif Mardin gave me my first education in social
ix