Sahaflar Şeyhizâde Esad Efendi (d. 1848) was one of the most important figures in 19th century Ottoman political and cultural history. After teaching at Mūsile-i Sahn, he held many high-ranking administrative positions, such as Regent of the Judge, Correspondent of the Office of the Sheikh al-Islam, Recorder of Events in the Qadiate of Istanbul, Official Historian, Chief Judge of the Army, Ambassador to Iran, Minister of the Imperial Printing House, Member of the Assembly of Justice, Naqib al-Ashraf, Chief Judge of Rumelia, Member of the Assembly of Education, and Head of the Assembly of Education. In addition to his political and administrative activities, Esad Efendi’s name is remembered for the poems and books he wrote and works he translated. Having been a good collector like his father Ahmed Efendi and his spiritual advisor the Mawlawi Hâlet Efendi (d. 1822), Esad Efendi scrutinized the works he added to his library. In 1846, two years before his death, Esad Efendi donated the books he had collected during his life in a pious endowment. Esad Efendi had served as the official historiographer (vaḳʿanüvîs) of the Ottoman Empire, editor-in-chief of the first official Turkish newspaper Taḳvīm-i Veḳāyiʿ, and ambassador to Iran for over a year in 1835-1836, and his collection of nearly 4,000 bound manuscripts, including important examples of the art of creative composition (inshā), was no coincidence. His collection contains 193 munsheāt books, 33 of which are Persian munsheāts.

The art of creative composition (inshā) is the general name given to any kind of writing that aims to demonstrate the power and value of writing. In Dānishnāmey-i Edeb-i Fārisī, the word inshā means to create and bring forth and has three literary meanings: a) a writer who uses eloquence to express their thoughts and feelings through construction, a technique that belongs only to prose; b) in the art of meʿānī, inshā means a statement whose meaning is not likely to be true or false, the opposite of news, a statement that cannot be denied or proven, and a statement through which the speaker or writer does not intend to show something in the real world; and c) in the official and historical context, inshā means a dīvān and vizierate whose duty is to write official and state correspondence. Meanwhile, the etymological meaning of the word munsheāt is to make, to produce, to do, to discover, to conceive, to write, to compose a sentence, to organize a speech, or to begin the construction of a building. In its briefest form, munsheāt means “artful writing” and refers to the drafts a munshī [secretary] writes after receiving instructions. Munsheāt also means a collection of official or unofficial letters written by scribes using literary terms. Munsheāt writing or correspondence, also known as teressül, mekātib, resāil, and nāme-hā, has a special place in Persian culture and literature as one of the techniques of construction. The Dīvān-ı Inshā, or Dīvān-ı Resāil, where the art of construction was intensively used, was an office that prepared official documents on behalf of the ruler and managed government correspondence. The documents produced in this office were gathered together for the training of munshī candidates and thus was where munsheāt compilations were created. Munsheāt compilations often contain samples of official and personal correspondence; sometimes historical, religious, and literary articles; or valuable pieces of poetry or other useful information. Although these compilations share some common features, munsheāt can be classified in terms of content as literary, historical and didactic works; in terms of writing style as compositions and compilations; and in terms of language as Arabic, Persian, or Turkish.

Among the 33 Persian munsheāt compilations (mecmuas) in the Esad Efendi Collection of the Süleymaniye Manuscript Library, 11 mecmuas have been previously studied by various scholars (Nos. 1739, 3295/2, 3297, 3298, 3302, 3309, 3329, 3331/5, 3333, 3346, and 3785/26). The remaining 22 compilations in the collection have not yet been fully studied and are registered under the following numbers: 1783, 1888/4, 2733/1, 2808/1, 3319, 3320, 3332, 3339/3, 3353/2, 3369/1, 3369/4, 3371, 3431/14, 3435/1, 3436/7, 3440/1, 3628/7, 3628/9, 3673/14, 3769/21, 3790/30, and 3817/14. These munsheāts can also be divided into two main categories: a) the didactic munsheāts that were written to instruct munshī candidates in the intricacies of the art of creative composition, and b) the munsheāts consisting of official and/or unofficial letters written by various historical figures. After the introduction to the art of creative composition, munsheāts, and munsheāt compilations, this article will discuss the contents of these 22 munsheāts that have not yet been studied in detail, with the aim being to introduce them to the scholarly world.