Ottoman scholar, historian and statesman, head of the commission that drafted the Mecelle, whose Miʿyār-ı sedād (1877) was the first Turkish logic book in the traditional manner and is counted the best of the Turkish textbooks based on the Īsāghūjī.
Life
Ahmed Cevdet was born in Lofça (Lovech) in present-day Bulgaria in 1823 and began Arabic with the town’s mufti. In 1839 his grandfather sent him to Istanbul, where he studied in the medreses with well-known teachers of the day, among them Hâfız Seyyid Efendi, Vidinli Mustafa Efendi and Kara Halil Efendi, took mathematics with other masters, and received his teaching licence (ruûs) in 1845. He soon moved into the state service of the Tanzimat: he was official chronicler (vakʿanüvis), wrote a multi-volume history of the Ottoman state, served as governor and inspector, and was several times Minister of Justice. He is best known as the head of the commission that drafted the Mecelle, the codification of Ḥanafī civil law. He died at his house in Bebek on 26 May 1895 and was buried beside the tomb of Mehmed the Conqueror.
For his work is Miʿyār-ı sedād (‘the measure of Sedād’), written for his son Ali Sedad and named after him; it was printed in Istanbul in 1293/1876–77 and 1303/1885–86. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi it is the first Turkish logic book written in the traditional manner. It follows the plan of the classical handbooks: an introduction on meaningful expressions, the division of into and and the of logic; a part on conceptions (the five and definition); and a part on assents (, the of the , modal propositions and the matters of syllogisms), ending briefly with the . Necati Öner considers the its source; the TDV author also sees post-Ghazālian logicians behind it. The title page of the 1303 edition says it was meant for the elementary schools, with the large-print text usable in the rüşdiye schools. Its terms are left in Arabic, which makes it hard for readers without Arabic.
Both Fatma Zehra Pattabanoğlu and the TDV place it at the head of the many Turkish textbooks of the later nineteenth century, most of them translations, or reworkings of the ; Pattabanoğlu calls it ‘the finest work of this series’. His son Ali Sedad drew on it for his Mîzânü’l-ukūl fi’l-mantık ve’l-usûl (1885), the first Turkish logic book to take in recent European logic. Cevdet Paşa also wrote Âdâb-ı sedâd (1294/1877), a short book on the rules of disputation meant as a companion to the Miʿyār.
Uncertain or disputed
- Year of birth: the TDV gives 1823 from his own statement; some older works give 1822.
Works
- Miʿyār-ı sedād مِعْيَارِ سَدَاد — on ĪsāghūjīTurkish handbook of logic in the traditional plan, for his son Ali Sedad; Istanbul 1293, 1303. Transcribed by Kudret Büyükcoşkun (Mantık Metinleri, 1998) and simplified by Hasan Tahsin Feyizli (1988) and Necati Demir (1998).work
- Âdâb-ı sedād fî ilmi’l-âdâbOn the rules of disputation, a companion to the Miʿyār (Istanbul 1294).work
- Târih-i CevdetHis history of the Ottoman state, his best-known work outside law.work
Reception
Hilmi Ziya Ülken called the Miʿyār the most perfect book of formal written in Turkish up to its time (TDV).
Through his son’s Mîzânü’l-ukūl the book stands at the point where Ottoman teaching turned from the tradition to European models.
Sources (3)