A Bibliographical Approach: Şeyhülislâm Ebussuûd Efendi
Serving as müderris (17 years), kadı (6 years), kadıasker (8 years) and şeyhülislam (more than 30 years) during the reigns of Selim I and Süleyman the Magnificent, Ebussuûd Efendi came to be a very outstanding figure in the intellectual, cultural and legal history of the Ottoman Empire. He became famous mostly with his tafsîr and fetvas. His fetvas and comments were very influential until the late Ottoman history and they have kept their significance even today. Except his tafsîr, his works were usually in fetva and risâle formats. His fetvas can be found dispersed in various works on fiqkh-mysticism, anonymous historical chronicles, archival sources and manuscript libraries. For his risâles, one can get an opinion based on bibliographical sources and library catalogues, but these sources should be scrutinized in terms of titles, names and isnâd. Among his works, his tafsîr and fatvas have been studied in academic and popular works. His tafsîr was not only re-published, but a doctoral study was also made on it. On the other hand, although his fetvas were studied selectively in various articles, symposium papers and theses, no holistic and comprehensive study on his legal comments in the light of his fetvas have yet been done. This article aims to focus on the life of Ebussuûd Efendi and his works. In the light of the sources and records of manuscript libraries, the paper ends by presenting some concluding remarks.
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