Alâeddîn Ali Esved Karahisârî

Alâeddîn Ali Esved Karahisârî, known among the people by the epithet "Kara Hoca," was a saint and a jurist (fıkıh scholar) of the Hanafî school. His real name was Ali bin Ömer. He received his early education in Karahisar and then went to Iran to advance his learning. There he deepened his studies by taking lessons from scholars nourished by the scholarly tradition of Fahreddîn er-Râzî. When he returned to his homeland, he was appointed by the Ottoman Sultan of the time, Orhan Gâzi, as a preacher (vaiz) to a mosque in İznik. Later, upon the death of Molla Tâceddîn, the vacated post was given to him, and he was promoted to a professorship (müderris) in the medrese. Among the students he raised were persons who later became prominent judges (kadıs) and statesmen of the Ottoman State; among them are counted the famous Şeyhülislâm Şemseddîn Fenârî and the vizier Çandarlı Kara Halîl. In this respect he became an important teacher who nourished the administrative and scholarly cadres of the state in the early Ottoman period. According to an incident related in the sources, Orhan Gâzi visited Kara Hoca in person in order to request a capable student who could serve him as a judge-counselor (kadı-müşavir); this incident is significant in showing the esteem his scholarly authority held at the level of the state. Thus, through both his personal scholarly accumulation and the students he raised, he held a determining place in the formative period of the Ottoman scholarly tradition. With these qualities he is regarded as one of the scholars who played a role in the rooting of Hanafî jurisprudence and the medrese tradition in Ottoman lands in Anatolia. He died in the year 1397 (AH 800) and was interred in his tomb in the Şerefzâde quarter of İznik. His life and scholarly personality have been recorded in many biographical and historical sources of the Ottoman period.