Kızılkaya / Fıkıh Usulünde Sahabe Fetvasının Kaynaklık Değeri Cilt / Volume: • Sayı /Issue: • 2012

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Human and Society
history. Şanizade and his work, Tarih-i Şanizade, occupy a central position in Ottoman 
history writing.
It is known that Şanizade was born about 1770 in Istanbul (İnal, 1988, p.111). According 
to another assertion, it is possible that he was born before 1771 (Zülfikar, 1991, p. 13). 
But these two claims do not contradict each other. Şanizade, a member of the class 
of scholars of Islamic Law  (Ulama), after his graduation from madrasah, completed 
Ulama education and he had the highest rank (Karslızâde, 1314, p. 66).  And then, he 
was appointed as a vak’anüvis between 1819 and 1825 during the reign of Mahmud 
II. He wrote down the events which took place between 1808 and 1921. Therefore 
he transferred the rest of the documents and papers of the 1821 – 1825 periods to 
Mehmed Esad Efendi (Kütükoğlu, 1994, p. 106). The manuscripts of Tarih-i Şanizade are 
available in different libraries of Turkey (Yılmazer, 2008, p. LXII).
Table 1. 
The Range of Tarih-i Şanizade with Regard to Years and Volumes*
Volumes
Time Intervals
Pages
Volume 1
1808-1811
8+409
Volume 2
1811-1818
8+425
Volume 3
1818-1821
4+216
Volume 4
1821
4+208
When Şanizade was writing his book, he used many different resources and made 
use of literal quotations to explain and clarify the events and to comment on issues. 
The resources used by Şanizade can be roughly separated into two parts: written and 
verbal. Verbal resources are very rare and as reliable as written resources. Written 
resources can also be divided into two: official documents and previously written his-
tory books (Yılmazer, 2008, p. LXXI). 
In the introduction to his book, Şanizade mentions his own ideas about history and 
divides history into three categories: authentic and true incidents, untrue and unreal 
events, and thirdly history built over rumors. This kind of history loses its authentic-
ity due to delusions and imagination of the human mind. (Şanizade, 2008, p. 14). On 
the other hand, Şanizade separates history into two parts in terms of content: sacred 
histories and general histories.
1
 The sacred one comprises of Prophet Mohammed’s 
* 
According to the table, it is obvious that historians could write down incidents more detailed 
when they record the events which are closer to them. Woodhead also states that Lokman and 
other historians composed the incidents closer to their time more detailed. See Woodhead (1983, 
p. 174-175).
1  Ahmet Mithat separates similarly history into three parts. See Nakıp (2006, p. 56, 83).

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53
Erol / Şanizade Mehmet Ataullah: An example of Ottoman History Writing and Thought of History
life, anecdotes of other prophets, and stories of saints. Their resources are composed 
of divine and supra-mundane books, prophet’s witnesses and the abstruse wisdom 
of exalted people. General histories discuss states, their administrational conditions, 
structure of societies and past events (Şanizade, 2008, p. 15). 
According to Şanizade, old people should narrate the events and stories of their own 
time with their realities. Otherwise, these realities would lose their ability or possibility 
to be passed on to the next generations and they would eventually vanish (Şanizade, 
2008, p. 15). Therefore, events need to be written down as soon as possible. It can be 
said that the institution of vakanuvis properly endeavored to accomplish this goal for 
two hundred years.
Şanizade discusses three pieces of evidence about the past which are based on some 
resources that are impossible to deny. The first evidence consists of observatory reg-
isters of Babylon. The second is the Chinese observatory registers as a counterpart of 
Babylon. And the last one is the inscriptions discovered by Thomas Howard (1585-
1646) on Bare Island in the Mediterranean. As well as these three pieces of evidence, 
Şanizade also mentions the Pyramids in Egypt. According to Şanizade, this evidence 
illustrate people’s past. After explaining these, Şanizade claims that the events preced-
ed this evidence cannot be known by people. Therefore, all of them can be learned or 
discovered by people merely through revelations, hadiths, and the information given 
by divine books and prophets.
These explanations give us the opportunity to see the ontological stand of Şanizade. 
In the introduction to his book, Şanizade discusses these issues and deals with history 
in terms of a theoretical base by commenting on it ontologically and epistemologi-
cally. This is not a common practice among vakanuvises. At that point, the historical 
viewpoint of vakanuvises separates not only epistemologically but also epistemologi-
cally from modern historiography. For example, Şanizade claims that the Creator has 
the absolute power and history happens within the framework of His law and system 
(Şanizade, 2008, p. 33). So, history is directly related to God and His creation. This 
ontological standpoint easily distinguishes from today’s modern and secular histori-
ography.
Ottoman historiography as a history writing tradition can be evaluated within two 
categories: The first one is “scientific” historiography, which can also be called Islamic 
historiography. The other is literary historiography. The second tradition emerged in 
the period when ancient Persian legends came about anew. In the Persian literary 
historiography, historians generally did not pay much attention to the resources. 
They rather preferred rhetorical narration and intense literary styles. Both traditions 
influenced Ottoman historiography. For example the influence of literary historiog-

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