A History of Ottoman Libraries

This volume tells the story of the development and the organization of Ottoman libraries from the fourteenth through the twentieth century. The book surveys the phases through which the history of Ottoman libraries evolved and lays out the organization, the personnel, and day-to-day functioning of these institutions.

Professor Erünsal obtained his PhD from Edinburgh University in 1977. He taught at Istanbul University’s Department of Library Sciences, and later chaired the Department of Archival Studies of Marmara University from 1990 to 2006. Professor Erünsal has extensively published on the history of libraries, booksellers, and book culture in the Islamic world.

İsmail Erünsal obtained his PhD from Edinburgh University in 1977. He taught at Istanbul University’s Department of Library Sciences, and later chaired the Department of Archival Studies of Marmara University from 1990 to 2006. Professor Erünsal has extensively published on the history of libraries, booksellers, and book culture in the Islamic world.

“А Нistory of Ottoman Libraries is based on meticulous research which covers а mind-boggling amount of archival documents from different institutions…It also has the great merit of nanking important scholarship in Turkish accessible to an English reading scholarly audience…[This book] is а systematic, well-researched, and carefully argued woгk that will, no doubt, become an extremely important reference work fог future reseaгch on topics pertaining to the Ottoman library system and to individual libraries. No comparable survey of the library system has been written to this day.”

— Feras Krimsti, Gotha Reseaгch Libгary, University of Erfurt, Archivum Ottmanicum

“A History of Ottoman Libraries is a timely addition to Ottoman intellectual history. Erünsal, who has published widely in Turkish on Ottoman libraries, noted the gap in Anglophone scholarship regarding this topic and duly assembled this book. … İsmail E. Erünsal's work has something to offer to all book lovers and historians alike with its comprehensive detailing of the institution of the Ottoman library.”

— Gemma Masson, World History Encyclopedia

“Surely a study that historians of Ottoman culture will refer to for many decades, this work impresses the reader by the broad documentation on libraries containing manuscripts germane to Islamic studies, which the author has investigated during a long and distinguished career. Prof. Erünsal has used a large number of pious/charitable foundation deeds made out by members of the Ottoman governing elite as well as by rich and public-spirited persons desiring to promote Islamic scholarship. His work thus clarifies how book collections until the later 1600s always were part of Islamic colleges, acquiring the manuscripts needed by their teachers and students. Even when eighteenth-century donors established independent libraries, these institutions often allowed for teaching, perhaps to a group of amateurs broader than the students and teachers benefiting from college libraries. After all, the latter were part of institutions, whose aim was to prepare students for careers as judges and teachers. Moreover, the author explains in a cogent fashion how in the nineteenth century, the dependence of Ottoman libraries on the conditions established by long-deceased founders made adaptation to the needs of a modernizing empire very difficult.

In addition, Prof. Erünsal has cleared up misunderstandings that have bedeviled historians for a long time. In particular, twentieth-century scholars had often assumed that the order of the chief mufti serving Ahmed III (r. 1703-30), to the effect that texts concerning non-religious disciplines could not be part of foundation libraries and thus were liable to confiscation, was an expression of hostility against non-religious learning on the part of the Ottoman religious elite. By contrast, Prof. Erünsal has convincingly argued in favor of an ad hoc fatwa that the sultan demanded from a compliant chief mufti: a reminder that throughout history, powerful people might conjure up supposedly religious or cultural arguments so that they could satisfy their acquisitive instincts.”

– Suraiya Faroqhi, Professor (Retired), Ludwig Maximilians Universität; Professor of History, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul