the three empires and the islamic phoenix 289and terms of science). In this bibliography Hajj Khalifah arranged
alphabetically all the Arabic, Persian and Turkish names of books
that were known to him. Although Hajji Khalifah was Turk, he excelled
as an Arabic writer, a rare example, and probably an exception that
was not to be repeated among his Turkish contemporaries.
From Egypt came Abd-al-Wahhàb al-Sha"rànì(d. 1565), a flùfì
tried by the Orthodox Ulama"for claiming to have been speaking
to angels and prophets. Al-Sha"rànìcompiled the lives and history
of all renowned flùfìs in his “al-Tabaqàt al-Kubra” (the great classes
or great layers).
Al-Zabidi was another example from Egypt. Al-Sayyid Murtada
al-Zabidi (1737–1791), an Indian by birth, produced in Cairo a volu-
minous commentary on Al-Ghazàlì’s Iœya"Ulùm al-Dìn.
Al-Jabarti, Abd-al-Rahman ibn Œassan al-Jabarti (d. 1822), who
was appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte as a member of the Grand
Council and held a chair of astronomy in al-Azhar produced a mas-
ter piece entitled Aja’ib al-Athàrfial-Taràjim w-al-Akhbàr(the wonders
of relics in biographies and events).
In Lebanon the major writers were Maronite Christians the most
renowned of whom was Yùsuf Sim’an al-Sim’ani (1687–1768) whose
masterpiece Bibliotheca Orientalis embraced researches on a large
number of Oriental manuscripts in Arabic, Hebrew and other ori-
ental languages.
From Syria came Muœammad al-Muhibbi (d. 1699) whose chief
work was a collection of twelve hundred and ninety biographies of
renowned Muslims who died in the century between 1591 and 1688,
and Abd-al-Ghani al-Nabulsì(d. 1731) whose work focused mainly
on the holy shrines and the legends surrounding them.
The above writings, though substantial and impressive, were more
informative and instructive than innovative or creative. There were
very little original thoughts or new ideas. The closure of the gate of
jurisprudence was perhaps showing its effect.
A number of factors, stretching over a century or so, could be
said to have contributed to the absence of an Ottoman Islamic legacy
of literary achievements, particularly in Islamic economics. Some of
these could be: the decline in the formal use of Arabic language, the
closure of the gate of jurisprudence, the Western intellectual pene-
tration, the alienation of religion in pursuit of secularization and the
lack of encouragement of judicial work. These factors are briefly dis-
cussed below.