Music Terms in The first Ottoman Sciences Encyclopedia named Unmuzac al-ulum by Mehmetşah Fenâri

Abstract

Music Terms in The first Ottoman Sciences Encyclopedia named Unmuzac al-ulum by Mehmetşah Fenâri
The sources of the history of Turkish music continue to be translated into Turkish by contemporary musicologists. In recent years, there is needed a great deal of researches on the sources to write Turkish music history. One of the historical sources of music is encyclopedic works of the time that contributed to the development of the Ottoman music culture. The source of music history examined in this article is an Arabic work that mentions hundred sciences in the establishment of the Ottomans, which also included a music science chapter. The name of the work is Unmuzac al-ulum (means Examples of sciences) written by Mehmet Shah Fenari. In this article, some dates and information about the life of the author were mentioned for the first time. The determinations about this Mehmetşah and his work are important not only for Turkish culture but also for the history of world science. New findings regarding the biography of the writer Mehmedşah Fenari are as follows: He was born in 1380 and became a scholar in Madrasa of Bursa in 1397 and he went from Bursa to Karaman in 1402 then in 1419, he traveled with his father to Damascus, Egypt, and Mecca- Medina and then returned from Egypt to Karaman in 1421. He passed from Karaman to Bursa in 1432. It writes in all sources where his date of death was in 1435. Some information about Mehmedşah Fenari's family is also among the first to be identified in this article. He has a daughter named Aslama and a son named Hasan Cheleby (d.1486). His son and grandson Ahmed Fenari (d.after 1495) were the scholar in Istanbul. These are the new findings in the article. The work named Unmûzecu'l-ulûm (: examples of sciences) was written in 1426 in Karaman during the reign of Murat II Ottoman. In the music science of the work there are music topics under seven part summarized information of Eastern music theory. As with encyclopedia, the purpose of this section is to give the reader general information about music sciences. This article is discussed in separate chapters that brief life of Mehmetşah Fenari, manuscripts of his encyclopedic work, translation of music science part in it, source of his work, explanations about translation and music terms, discussions and schools of music theory in Ottoman Empire when it was written, its influence in Ottoman history or place in music history. It has been determined in it that Fahr ad-Din Razi's book is used as a source. One of the findings of the article is that the music terms in this encyclopedia are music theory terms from the Ibn Sina's book, and these terms relate to the wire ratios for harmonious sounds. The story about the invention of music is about Pythagoras. This story is actually a story that has been moved from Isfahan to Anatolia and has helped the Christian people and Muslim people in Anatolia to combine culturally. This story has been narrated in the intellectual books of the Ottoman for many years until the XIX century.