A Contribution to the Ottoman Hāshiya Culture: Koca Mehmed Rāgib Pasha and His Baydāwī Hāshiya

Abstract

In this study, the annotation (hāshiya) of Koca Mehmed Rāgib Pasha (d.1698/99- 1763) to Baydāwī’s tafsīr book called Anwāru’t-tanzîl wa Asrāru’t -ta’wīl is analyzed. Vasıf Efendi -who was a chronicler in his time- defined Koca Mehmed Rāgib Pasha -who was literary scholarly talented and the famous statesman- as “İnsan-ı kâmil denilmeye sezâ, sadru’l-vüzerâ elkabına revâ.” For this purpose, initially, the life of the annotator (muhashshi) is mentioned generally. And then information about style and genre of the annotation which is a written work is given. Also in this study the book is evaluated in terms of method and content. Within this scope, how riwāyat and dirāyat methods were used in this annotation is tried to be detected with concrete examples. The annotation’s approaches to the reasons of the revelation (asbab al-nuzûl), the attitude about isrāiliyyāt, the statements about İ’cāzu’l-Qur’ān, the explanations on qiraāt, the explications related to sarf and nahw are handled. The fıqhī and kalāmī explanations which Koca Rāgib Pasha made are mentioned too. The used references in the annotation are given. In this article, the answers to the questions as how important the annotation culture is in the Ottoman, how they contributed to this field and whether Koca Rāgib Pasha who is cited in the literary and historical works often is successful as far as in the Islamic Sciences are searched.