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An Ottoman scholar known for his work Majalis al-abrar and for his severe stance against innovations (bid'a).
He was born in Cyprus into a Christian family and embraced Islam after the Ottoman conquest of the island. He studied with scholars in Damascus and Istanbul.
He settled in Akhisar, a district of the sanjak of Saruhan in western Anatolia, where, without accepting any official post, he taught and wrote until the end of his life. According to the source, the subjects of his works are first of all personal piety, the ascetic life and honesty in trade, with no bearing on administrative, political or military matters; hence Majalis al-abrar was written for Ottoman merchants, scholars and service people rather than addressed to any sultan or ruler.
The source states that it is possible to say al-Aqhisari was connected with the Ottoman revivalist movement of the XVI and XVII centuries influenced by Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. In his Radd al-qabriyya and in the seventeenth chapter of the Majalis he refers explicitly to Ibn Qayyim and his master and quotes from their works rejecting the veneration of graves. In his commentary on Birgivi Mehmed Efendi's al-Durr al-yatim on Qur'anic recitation he speaks of him with praise. In many collections of treatises in libraries, Birgivi's Vasiyetname, Kadızade Mehmed Efendi's Risale and al-Aqhisari's Risala fi al-aqa'id are bound together, showing that these works were perceived at the time as complementary texts. His works give much space to such topics as innovations, commanding right and forbidding wrong, the ragha'ib and bara'a prayers, dhikr, the supplications in Friday sermons, hand-shaking after congregational prayers, Sufi rites and sama' ceremonies, and the use of tobacco. According to the source these were the subjects of the debates between the Kadızadelis and the people of the Sufi orders and were treated in Katib Chelebi's Mizan al-haqq; on them al-Aqhisari mostly took a strict and prohibitive position.
He died in Akhisar. Because Katib Chelebi fixed the date of his death on the authority of al-Aqhisari's son, who was his own student, the source regards the date 1041 (1632) as more reliable than those given elsewhere. He is recorded as having been buried in the Uzuntaş Cemetery in Akhisar.
His Circle of Influence — According to the source, al-Aqhisari's influence on later Ottoman society has not yet been brought to light. By contrast, Majalis al-abrar can be said to have strongly influenced the Indian subcontinent. Around 1850 long extracts from it, together with sections from the works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim, appeared in a Persian work titled al-Balagh al-mubin, wrongly attributed to Shah Wali Allah al-Dihlawi. The work was printed in Delhi in 1866 with an Urdu translation by Subhan Bakhsh al-Shikarpuri, without naming its author and with its end missing; this edition carries a foreword by Shah Abd al-Aziz al-Dihlawi. In 1903 it was published in Lucknow with a different Urdu translation by Abd al-Wali al-Madrasi, this time attributed to al-Aqhisari. The Urdu translation printed in 1978 was made by Kifayat Allah Dihlawi, mufti of the Deobandi movement, and has been reprinted ever since. In 2011 Mustafa Şeyh (Mustapha Sheikh) wrote a doctoral thesis and Mustafa Boz a master's thesis on al-Aqhisari.
His Works — ① Majalis al-abrar wa-masalik al-akhyar: his most famous and, according to Katib Chelebi, his last work, comprising a hundred religious topics inspired by hadiths in sources such as al-Baghawi's Masabih al-sunna. Many manuscripts exist in Turkey, the Arab countries and India; in all its Urdu translations the 100th session is missing. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Khumayyis published four of its sessions (Riyadh 2001), and this edition was translated into Turkish (Istanbul 2002). ② Sharh al-Durr al-yatim fi al-tajwid. ③ Risala fi al-aqa'id: the author's only known work in Turkish, also called Vasiyetname. He also wrote treatises on imitation (taqlid), the superiority of prophethood over sainthood, the degrees of the self and of worship, the remembrance of the tongue and the heart, the blameworthiness of innovation, evil and non-evil innovation, graves (Radd al-qabriyya), blessings and amin during the sermon, hand-shaking after the prayers, dancing and whirling (dawran), and tobacco (Dukhaniyya). Ali Çelik produced a study of the treatise on innovation (Eskişehir 2000), and Yahya Michot translated the Dukhaniyya into English.
Differing Scholarly Views
The source article was written in the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam. The points the source distinguishes are set out side by side below; the scholar's views are recorded as the views in his own works, and the article author's assessments are separated as "the source". The atlas takes no side.
His view on graves — In Radd al-qabriyya and in the seventeenth chapter of the Majalis, al-Aqhisari relies on quotations from Ibn Qayyim rejecting the veneration of graves. This is the view he defended in his own works. According to the source, this and similar questions were debated between the Kadızadelis and the people of the Sufi orders and were treated in Katib Chelebi's Mizan al-haqq. As an atlas of visitation, the atlas does not conceal this view; it passes no judgment in the debate.
His relation to Sufism — Bağdatlı İsmail Paşa and some other authors present al-Aqhisari as a Khalwati shaykh. The source states that this conflicts with the severe criticisms of the Khalwatiyya in Majalis al-abrar. The atlas records both presentations side by side.
Date of death — Different dates of death appear in the sources. Because Katib Chelebi gave the date on the authority of al-Aqhisari's son, who was his own student, the source regards the date he gives, 1041 (1632), as more reliable.
Persons confused with him — According to the source, in some studies Ahmad al-Rumi has been confused with the Bosnian scholar Hasan Kafi al-Aqhisari (d. 1024/1615). The Daqa'iq al-haqa'iq that Mehmet Emin Müderrisoğlu attributed to him belongs instead to Ahmad al-Rumi, the Anatolian Sufi author who lived in India (d. 750/1349); the source gives this date of death with a question mark.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) · vol. EK-1, pp. 60-62, entry “Akhisârî, Ahmed-i Rûmî”
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