Islamic Tradition of Refutation and Tâşköprizāde’s Risālah fī al-Radd ʿalā al-Yahūd
Fuat AydınThe tradition of Muslim refutation of non-Islamic religions began to produce its first products in the 9th century and continues its active existence today. One of the major religions to which refutations were written is Judaism (the other is Christianity). This criticism of Judaism that initiated with the Qur’an became a literary style that revolves around certain topics, as in the critiques of Christianity. During the Ottoman period, this tradition maintained its vitality regarding these determined issues. Tashköprīzāde continued this tradition with his work, namely Risālah fī al-Radd ʿalā al-Yahūd. The Risālah comprises four parts and proposes that Judaism is not an eternal religion, Muhammad was heralded in their scriptures, the Torah was corrupted, and the crimes were those that Jews attributed to their prophets. In the study, the copies of the Risāla, the historical context in which it was written, the sources it used, the edited publication, and the translation of the text are discussed.
İslam Reddiye Geleneği ve Taşköprizâde Ahmed B. Mustafa’nın (968/1561) Risâle Fî’r-Redd `Ale`l-Yehûd Adlı Eseri Üzerine Bir Araştırma
Fuat Aydınİslam dışı dinlere yönelik Müslüman reddiye geleneği ilk ürünlerini dokuzuncu yüzyıldan itibaren vermeye başlamıştır. Bugün de aktif bir şekilde varlığını devam ettirmektedir. Kendilerine karşı reddiye kaleme alınan ana dinlerden biri Yahudiliktir (diğeri de Hıristiyanlıktır). Kur`an`la başlatılan bu Yahudi eleştirisi, Hıristiyanlık eleştirisinde olduğu gibi zamanla belli konular etrafında dönen bir edebi tarz halini aldı. Osmanlı döneminde de belirlenmiş bu konular etrafındaki gelenek canlılığını korumuştur. Taşköprizâde kaleme aldığı Risâle fî`r-red ʿale`l-yehûd adlı eseriyle söz konusu geleneği devam ettirenlerden biridir. Risâle, dört bölümden oluşmaktadır. Yahudiliğin ebedi bir din olmadığını, Hz. Peygamberin onların kitaplarında müjdelendiği, Tevrat`ta tahrifin vukuu bulduğu ve Yahudilerin peygamberlerine isnat ettikleri suçlar konularını ele almaktadır. Çalışmada Risâlenin nüshaları, ele alındığı tarihsel bağlam, yararlandığı kaynaklar ele alınacak, ayrıca metnin tahkikli neşri ve çevirisine de yer verilecektir.
The tradition of Muslim refutation of non-Islamic religions began to produce its first products in the 9th century and continues its active existence today. One of the major religions to which refutations were written is Judaism (the other is Christianity). This Jewish criticism that began with the Qur’an, became a literary style that revolves around certain topics, as in the critique of Christianity. During the Ottoman period, this tradition maintained its vitality regarding these determined issues. Tashköprīzāde has continued this tradition with his work, namely Risālah fī`r-rad ʿraa`l-Yahūd. Ottoman society was a pluralist society in religious and ethnic terms. Therefore, publications that would harm the pluralism in question and cause conflict between ethnic and religious groups were generally avoided. However, as a result of the increasing number and social visibility of non-Muslims and religious debates entering the public domain in a manner that disturbed the society, such studies started to be conducted.
These studies were written either by Muslim origin authors or by people who had converted to Islam. The texts of refutation by the converts were written for two reasons. The first reason is the effort to legitimize their conversion in the religious community from which they came. The second reason is a result of the requests of Muslims to provide information on their old religion, which they know well, to highlight Islam. The 16th century was a period in which anti-Jewish texts were frequently written in Ottoman history. This was in reaction to the upsurge of the jewish population in the ottoman society in general and Istanbul in particular which took place after the Jewish expulsion from andalusia.
As a result of the gathering of Jewish intellectuals in Istanbul, combined with the quality of the Andalusian intellectual environment, religious debates started to occur in the residences of important statesmen. These discussions sometimes led the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to order some individuals to answer them in writing.2 The Risālah fī`rrad ʿala`l-Yāhūd, written by Tashköprīzāde is the last of the three texts written in this context in the 16th century, and there are four copies of the text. Only one of these copies has the copying date as 1826. The others do not have a historical record.
The Risālah was written in four chapters. The first chapter (tazyīfu taʾbīdi dīni Musā ʿalayhissalām) explains that the claim of the Jews that the religion of Moses is eternal is invalid. The second chapter (dalāilu nubuwwati nabbiyinā Muhammad ṣallallāhu ‘alayhissalām) attempts to show that the six texts in the Torah pre-herald the coming of the Prophet and that the different interpretations of the Jews are invalid. The third chapter (Wukūuʿt-taḥrīfāt fī’t-Torah) claims that the Torah has been distorted in the context of two examples. The fourth chapter (maṭāʿinu’l-Yahūd) reveals what he sees as slander against the prophets by the Jews. The references of Risālah to Jewish scriptures (Tanakh and Talmud, Midrash) and his Hebrew word analysis have made the issue of the authorship of Tashköprīzāde, who does not have such a background, controversial. However, the fact that the copies of the Risālah were recorded in his name and that he reached refutations written in Turkish and Arabic during his lifetime and even used one of them as a source makes it reasonable to accept his authorship. A more controversial issue than this issue is the effect of the Risālah on subsequent refutations. Judith Pfeiffer, who published a study on the text of Yūsuf b. Abi Abduddayyan’s Kitābu Kashfu`l-esrār fī ilzāmi`l-yahūd wa`laḥbār says that this book is an exact copy of Tashköprizāde’s work. He concludes that the text of Abduddayyān was written in 1651 based on the copy in Vehbi Efendi of Baghdad, which bears two dates on its end, and explains that its similarity with Tashköprīzāde is because Ibn Abi Abduddayyān plagiarized his text.
