Family Name: Esad
First Name: Mehmed
Birth Place: Ioannina
Death Date: 1728
Death Place: Istanbul
Main places of activity:
Place From To
Istanbul 1684 1728
Personal info:
Education

Yanyalı Esad Efendi (Asʿad Ibn ʿAlī Ibn ʿUṯmān al-Yānyawī in Arabic; Yanyevî Esad Hoca in Turkish) was born in Ioannina, an Albanian town now in north-western Greece which gradually became an important centre for the study of Greek grammar and philosophy during his lifetime. His primary education was entrusted to the local Müfti (Islamic jurist) Mehmed Efendi and to the great Ottoman scholar İbrahim Efendi.

After he moved to Istanbul in 1686, Esad of Ioannina completed his higher education at different local schools (Madrasa) with important figures: he studied calculus, algebra and astronomy with the Müfti of Tekirdağ Mustafa Efendi; Euclidean geometry with Müneccimbaşı Mehmed Efendi; philosophy and theology with Akşehirlizade İbrahim Efendi. We also know from his records that he learned Persian from Molla Müncil and that he studied advanced Latin.
Career

Esad of Ioannina's remarkable career as a scholar developed in different directions.

In 1699, he became Müderris (professor, religious scholar) of philosophy in Istanbul, teaching at the Madrasas of Süleyman Aga, Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī and in the Eyüp district. During his career, he contributed to the education of different prestigious personalities of his times, such as the Moldavian man of letters Dimitrie Cantemir, to whom he taught Turkish, and the Grand Dragoman Nicholas Mavrocordatos.

During the Tulip period (1718-30), he was also an active member of the Translation Council created by the Grand Vizier Damad İbrahim Pasha with the aim of translating philosophical and scientific works into Arabic. Esad of Ioannina quickly became one of the editors of the publishing house run by Ibrāhīm Müteferrika under Sultan Ahmed III, who also appointed him librarian of the Topkapı palace. From 1725, he was nominated judge of Galata.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Esad of Ioannina translated philosophical works from Latin and Greek, into Arabic and Turkish, and the extent of his massive production is still to be fully ascertained. Most of the translations that came down to us belong to the Arabic manuscript tradition, and contain rich layers of marginalia, notes, and additional translations from commentaries to the original texts, a case in point being Porphyry's Isagoge (c. 269) or Introduction to Aristotle's Categories. Many others of Esad of Ioannina's versions are mentioned or referred to in several manuscripts but are currently lost, such as his Turkish translation of the book of logic Kitāb Maṭāli' al-anwār (1024) from the Persian philosopher Siraj al-Din Urmavi.

As the result of the expansion in the Aegean sea and the incorporation of Greek enclaves under Ottoman rule, in 1721 Esad of Ioannina was commissioned -- together with other scholars of the Translation Council he was a member of -- with a new translation of Aristotle's works into Arabic, and focussed his efforts on Logics, Physics and Metaphysics. This undertaking was carried on with the assistance of various Phanariots and scholars from the Christian community in Istanbul, and attempted an integration of the Medieval Islamic Aristotelian tradition and modern Greek learning. Representing a clear break from Avicenna's reading of Aristotle, Esad of Ioannina understood Physics as a system of natural philosophy, siding with Averroes and embracing the Paduan version of Aristotelianism as transmitted through the commentaries of Joannes Cottunius (see translation works).

secondary bibliography references

Mahmut Kaya, 'Some Findings on Translations Made in the Eighteenth Century from Greek and Es'ad Efendi's Translation of the Physica', in Transfer of Modern Science & Technology to the Muslim World, ed. by Ekmeleddin Isanoglu, IRCICA, 1992, 385-92.

Mehmet Sait Özervali, 'Yanyal Esad Efendi's Works on Philosophical Texts as Part of the Ottoman Translation Movement in the Eighteenth Century', in Europe and Turkey in the 18th Century, ed. by Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp, Bonn University Press, 2011, 457-72.

B. Harun Küçük, 'Natural Philosophy and Politics in the Eighteenth Century: Esad of Ioannina and Greek Aristotelianism at the Ottoman Court', Journal of Ottoman Studies, 41, 2013, 125-58.

Silvia Di Vincenzo, 'Reading Avicenna’s "Kitāb al-Šifāʾ in the Ottoman World: The Circulation of the Work within the School of Asʿad al-Yānyawī', Mélanges, LXVII (2018), 327-50.

Translations

  • Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις

  • Translation Title: El-Tā’līmü’s-Sālis
  • Original Author: Aristotle
  • Original title: Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις
  • lang: Greek
  • Title: Commentarii lucidissimi in octo libros Aristotelis de physico auditu
  • Publisher: Paolo Frambotti
  • Pub. Place: Padua
  • Pub. Year: 1647
  • Lang: Latin
  • Translation: El-Tā’līmü’s-Sālis
  • Lang: Arabic
  • Note:

    Esad of Ioannina's "A Study of Aristotle's Physics in Three Books".

  • Ἀναλυτικὰ Πρότερα

  • Translation Title: Al-Šarḥ al- anwar fī al-manṭiq
  • Original Author: Aristotle
  • Original title: Ἀναλυτικὰ Πρότερα
  • lang: Greek
  • Title: Compendiosa Logica in Usum Scholarium
  • Publisher: Matteo Bolzetta
  • Pub. Place: Padua
  • Pub. Year: 1668
  • Lang: Latin
  • Translation: Al-Šarḥ al- anwar fī al-manṭiq
  • Lang: Arabic
  • Note:

    Far from being only a translation of Aristotle's Logic, this version includes a summary and commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior and Posterior Analytics by Ioannes Cottunius (De Vincenzo, 2018).

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By:

  • Giovanni Lista