Abstract
<jats:p>The Authors of the Ottoman is a famous bibliography and biography book prepared by Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir in three volumes towards the end of the Ottoman Empire. It is the result of the author’s 25 years of work. This work, which he started with the aim of proving how wrong the perception that the Turkish nation knows nothing other than war, presents the works produced by the Ottoman Turks in various fields of knowledge and the depth of culture possessed by their authors. The Authors of the Ottoman provides information about the lives and works of scholars who are sophisticated and artistic individuals that have written works. The individuals included in the book are classified not alphabetically but according to their professions and their prominent fields. Among those whose information is provided in the book, 288 are Sufi scholars called “meşâyih”, 465 are scholars dealing with Islamic and philological sciences, 510 are poets and writers, 237 are historians, 84 are in the field of medicine, and 107 are authors in the field of riyaziyyûn (mathematics). In addition, incidental information about other authors and works is also included. In this way, the number of authors mentioned in the book is over 480, and the number of recorded works exceeds 9,000. While there are other works in the fields of biography and bibliography, this work has a unique feature. Unlike previous works that provided very little information about the authors, this book provides detailed information and does not separate biography from bibliography. Information from various sources has been collected in this book. The author has visited various libraries in different regions due to his profession and personally examined many books to provide information about them. In this work, we find information about many authors and books that we were not previously aware of. We still have not been able to access many works that are directly observed and provided with information by the author. Due to the reasons we have listed, the Authors of the Ottoman has not yet been surpassed in many aspects. The Authors of the Ottoman, a significant work that researchers and intellectuals constantly refer to, was composed within today’s alphabet by Prof. Dr. M. A. Yekta Saraç. The work, first published by TÜBA in academic quality, provides detailed information about scholars who have lived and produced works from the establishment of the Ottoman Empire to its final period, categorized under the headings of Meşâyih (religious scholars), Ulemâ (scholars), Şuarâ (writers and poets), Müverrihîn (historians), Etıbbâ (physicians and doctors), Riyâziyyûn (mathematicians), and Coğrafiyyûn (geographers). The Authors of the Ottoman, one of the most famous works of Ottoman biography, has been designed and printed in three volumes, similar to its first edition. A comprehensive and advanced index has been added to the end of the third volume of the book with the intention to assist the reader.</jats:p>