Ottoman scholar whose gloss on al-Fanārī’s commentary became so closely tied to it that the two were read, printed and named together (‘Fanārī and Qul Aḥmad’).
Life
Nothing is known about Qul Aḥmad’s life beyond his name and his gloss. TDV and Ḥājjī Khalīfa call him Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Khiḍr, known as Qul (or Qawl) Aḥmad. The German manuscript catalogue (VOHD) places him around 950/1543–44, with a question mark; Adem Evmeş gives 950/1543 as his death date.
His fame rests entirely on his gloss (ḥāshiya) on al-Fanārī’s al-Fawāʾid al-Fanāriyya. Ḥājjī Khalīfa, writing in the seventeenth century, calls it the most precise and subtle of the glosses on al-Fanārī; it opens, like al-Fanārī’s itself, with the words ḥamdan laka llāhumma.
Uncertain or disputed
- His dates: only ‘around 950/1543’ is given, and the catalogue marks it as uncertain.
- The reading of his name: Qul (Turkish kul, ‘servant’) or Qawl (‘saying’); TDV writes ‘Kul (Kavil) Ahmed’. Evmeş calls him Ahmed b. Hızır, omitting his father’s name.
Works
- Ḥāshiya ʿalā al-Fawāʾid al-Fanāriyya (‘Qul Aḥmad’) حَاشِيَةُ قُولْ أَحْمَد عَلَى الفَوَائِدِ الفَنَارِيَّة — on al-FanārīOften simply called Qul Aḥmad. Printed in Istanbul together with the matn, al-Fanārī’s commentary and Burhān al-Dīn’s gloss, with glosses by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ṭarasūsī (d. 1705 or 1706) on Qul Aḥmad (lithograph, [1858]); a later Istanbul printing is cited by Kayacık as ‘Tam Kayıtlı Fenari ve Kavl-i Ahmet’ (Salah Bilici, 1985). Modern edition: Ḥāshiyat Qul Aḥmad ʿalā Sharḥ al-Fanārī ʿalā Īsāghūjī, ed. Muṣṭafā Shaykh Muṣṭafā (Beirut: Maktabat al-Hāshimī, 2nd ed. 2015).gloss
Reception
TDV names it, with Burhān al-Dīn’s, as the most important gloss on al-Fanārī. Kayacık writes that al-Fanārī’s was read in Ottoman madrasas together with Qul Aḥmad’s gloss.
It attracted glosses of its own: Ḥājjī Khalīfa mentions marginal notes (taʿlīqāt) including al-Farāʾid al-saniyya fī ḥall al-Fawāʾid al-Fanāriyya by Abū Bakr b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Ḥalabī, written in blended form; a Princeton manuscript contains an anonymous gloss on it, and the Istanbul print carries al-Ṭarasūsī’s notes.
Sources (8)
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, ‘ÎSÂGŪCÎ’ (Abdulkuddüs Bingöl)
- Kâtip Çelebi (Ḥājjī Khalīfa), Kashf al-ẓunūn, entry ‘Īsāghūjī’: al-Fanārī’s commentary and its glosses
- Leipzig KOHD manuscript record: Qūl Aḥmad, al-Ḥawāšī ʿalā l-Fanārīya (Cod. Ms. arab. 584)
- Leipzig KOHD manuscript record: Qūl Aḥmad, Ḥāšiya ʿalā l-Fawāʾid al-Fanārīya (Hs. or. 13414)
- University of Pennsylvania Libraries: Kitāb Fanārī wa-ḥāshiyat Qūl Aḥmad wa-matn Īsāghūjī ([Constantinople, 1858])
- Princeton University Library, Garrett 472H (includes Qawl Aḥmad ʿalā al-Fanārī and a gloss on it)
- Ahmet Kayacık, ‘İslam Mantık Geleneğinde Fenari’nin Yeri’, İslâmî İlimler Dergisi 5/2 (2010)
- Adem Evmeş, comparison of al-Kātī’s and al-Fanārī’s commentaries, Bozok Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 17 (2020)