180 chapter 4
If this applies to Ali’s later works, and especially to his universal history of
dynasties, texts such as Selaniki’s history and the prophetic vision of Derviş
Mehmed (as well as of Saruhani’s Rumûzü’l-künûz, which was seen above)
instead correspond to a worldview chronologically centered around the year
1000 as a starting point for either decline or rise; whichever is the case, they
all convey a sense of urgency and of a crucial historical moment that has to be
overcome. A “Golden Age”, the topos of posterior literature, is already present,
be it in the past or the distant future.
3.1 Hasan Kâfi Akhisari, Üveysi
Ali’s name is often coupled with that of another late sixteenth-century
author, Hasan Kâfî b. Turhan b. Davud b. Ya’kub ez-Zîbî el-Akhisarî el-Bosnavî.
Akhisari, however, differed in many ways from his great contemporary, in
both personality and work.64 He was born in Bosnia in 1544, where he had a
medrese education, which he continued in Istanbul from 1566 onwards. In 1575, he
returned to Bosnia as a teacher; about a decade later, in 1583, he changed career
path to become a judge in his native town, Akhisar. He was then appointed to
other towns of the region, went on the Hajj, and joined the campaigns to Eğri
(1596) and Estergon (1605). He died in 1616 in Akhisar, leaving behind him a
large body of work on philology, fikh, theology, philosophy, and history. Among
his numerous treatises, what interests us most is the Usûlü’l-hikem fi nizâmi’l-
âlem (“Elements of wisdom for the order of the world”); Akhisari wrote it in
1596 in Arabic, and since it was very successful among various ulema and of-
ficials, he also translated it into Turkish. Akhisari’s treatise was widely read;
it was copied in numerous manuscripts, and gained a new lease of life in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with many editions and translations.
Akhisari’s essay is an unusual mixture of traditional “mirror for princes”,
with a strong Ottoman flavor, and an attempt to theorize on the human soul
and society in the manner of the moralist ahlak authors. At the very beginning
of his treatise, Akhisari states that it concerns the order of the world (nizam-i
alem) and that it should be used by “the officials of the government and the
experts of the sultanly court” (I248; elsewhere, he repeats that he meant “to
reiterate the rules of the world order” [I250]). A world order, he explains, exists
because God wanted the world and its people to survive until the End of Days.
Propagation of mankind comes from social intercourse, which comes from
64 On his life and works see Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, s.v. (M. Aruçi); Fodor 1986,
225–227; Yılmaz 2003a, 307–308; İnan 2009, 116; Black 2011, 263–264. For the transcription
of his Üsulü’l-hikem see Akhisari – İpşirli 1979–80; for an early twentieth-century German
translation, see Akhisari – Karácson 1911.