Abstract

: The late period Ottoman intellectual and writer, Aḥmad Ṣāfī’s one of the extant works is an encyclopedic study consists of eighteen volumes. The original copy is lost but there is a microfilm record at Suleymaniye Manuscript Library. Apart from a few book reviews, this work has still not attained enough attention from researchers. In this article, we examine a section on music in Safīna al-Ṣāfī. This chapter is about the oud and its history, its process of making, and the fifth string that is added to oud later. When examining the subjects and the way that Ahmed Safi dealt with in his work, it has been seen that he made quotations from some works. There are some mistakes in the information given, both historically and theoretically. We have discussed these issues in turn with the following and have subject to some criticism. Some of the incomplete and incorrect information contained in the previous works together with a number of different topics are found because of the historical importance. Summary: Aḥmad Ṣāfī was born on 24 February 1851 in his family house around Bahçekapı in Istanbul. His father, who was a state manager, was Sayyid İbrahim b. al-Hâj. Aḥmad Ṣāfī studied the Qur'ān and the Tajwīd in primary school in Bahçekapi and continued his education at Vâlide Sultan Rushdiyya school. He lived in Anatolia and Rumeli due to his father's duty. He began his official life in November or December 1865 in loan department of state treasury. Later, he learned Arabic from Tokatlızâde Hacı Ahmed, and Persian from Mirza İsmail. Although he retired in 1913 having worked at different office jobs, he had short-lasting jobs in the following years. A year before his death, he taught Mesnevi at Uzbeks Dergāh, which was opposite the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque in Dizdariye on Friday nights. Meanwhile, He also gave Persian lessons to those who demanded to learn. He died in 1926 in the house of İbrahim Bey, who was his son. In our work, we used the digital copy of Aḥmad Ṣāfī's work in the number of 2096 of Suleymaniye Library's Manuscript Department's Microfilm Archive. The inner cover of this copy contains the following statement: “Safīna al-Ṣāfī, Aḥmad Ṣāfī, Cerrahpasa Medical History Institute, 210 x 150 mm, İstanbul, Suleymaniye Library Microfilm and Photocopy Service December 1972 - February 1973.” In addition, in some volumes the inscription "Institute of Medical History Library" was recorded. However, in today's scans, the original copy of this work has not been found. From these records, it was understood that the microfilm was shoot by Suleymaniye Library between December 1972 and February 1973. Consisting of eighteen volumes, the work contains encyclopedic information on various topics. The work, which is a manuscript, was written with the Ottoman period alphabet. There is no detailed study on Safīna al-Ṣāf and the only study on its contents belongs to Necdet Tosun. In that study titled "Kültür Tarihimize Işık Tutan Mühim Bir Kaynak: Safīna al-Ṣāfī ", the content of the work dealt with the volumes in connection with the topic titles, after information about the author and his work was given. There is an independent title on music in three places in the work which is the subject of this study. The first of these is the section titled "oud from musical instruments" is between the pages of 1187 and 1196 in volume X, the section of "The performance of the music performance" is between the pages of 1226 and 1235 in volume XI and the part of “relation of music science to astronomy” is on the pages of 2990 and 2993 in volume XVIII. Aḥmad Ṣāfī began to write volume X of his book in February 1916. When it is considered that the next volume was written in August 1916, it can be said that the part which was examined in this study was written in 1916. Aḥmad Ṣāfī expresses that he uses three names in his work. These are al-Fārābī, Abd al-Qadir Merāgī and Ladikli Mehmed Çelebi. He also makes quotations from al-Fārābī's work titled Kitāb al-Mūsīkā al-Kabīr. This is important to our view due the fact that these were obtained through rumor and based on the information in the book and the writers had never seen the work of al-Fārābī although al-Fārābī, was mentioned as a source in many of the works written in the Ottoman period. In this sense, the scientific principle draws attention in Aḥmad Ṣāfī's work style. Along with this fact, Aḥmad Ṣāfī offers some contradictions by taking some wrong information into his work. For example, Aḥmad Ṣāfī attributes the fifth string which is added to the oud to al-Fārābī, However, this string started to be used in the Arab world at least a century ago. Another wrong evaluation of Aḥmad Ṣāfī was that he claimed that the sixth string of oud appeared in the 15th century. It is important that Aḥmad Ṣāfī creates a small dictionary of pieces of oud in his work as we cannot see this kind of explanation in previous works. By being aware of this fact, he expresses that he offers new information to the readers, indicating that such words are not even found in dictionaries. We do not know why the author produces a chapter on merely the oud. Why did he choose the oud among many instruments? Why did he deal with oud history and structure instead of giving information about music theory and history? Such a question would be easy to answer for the works written before the 15th century as the oud was the basic instrument through which the theory of music was explained to this century. However, when it came to the 20th century, the oud had already lost its feature especially in the Ottoman territory. Nevertheless, based on his own statements, we can think that he made such a choice because he mentions the works of the theoreticians such as al-Fārābī, Merāgī and Ladikli. In our opinion, one of the most important points in this title is the explanation of the terms and phrases about the parts of oud. As the author says, this is information which is not found in dictionaries, and it is valuable at the thought that there is still no comprehensive music dictionary today.