Taşköprüzade
16th c. Ottoman historian
Taşköprüzade or Taşköprülüzade Ahmet (Arabic: طاشكبري أحمد), pseudonym of Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafá ibn Khalīl Ṭāshkubrīʹzādah (Arabic: أحمد بن مصطفى بن خليل طاشكبري; Bursa, 3 December 1495 – Istanbul, 16 April 1561), was an Ottoman Turkish historian and chronicler living during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, who was famous for his great biographical encyclopedia titled Al-Shaqāʾiq al-Nuʿmāniyya fī ʿUlamāʾ al-Dawla al-ʿUthmāniyya (Arabic: الشقائق النعمانية في علماء الدولة العثمانية, lit. 'The Anemones, on the Scholars of the Ottoman Era').
Life
The family was known as Taşköprülüler because Ahmet's grandfather had been a professor at the Muzafferiye madrassa of Hayreddin Halil in Taşköprü, Kastamonu. Taşköprülüzade received his first education from his father, Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Muṣṭafā, and his uncle, Kemaleddin Kasım, in Ankara and Bursa, and completed his studies in Istanbul. He was appointed to the Oruç Pasha Madrasah in Dimetoka in 1525, and then to the Hacı Hüseyinzade Madrasah in Istanbul. Later, he worked as a professor in various madrassa in Skopje and Edirne. He was appointed judge (qāḍī) of Bursa in 1545, and of Istanbul in 1551. A sight problem led to an early retirement from public service in 1554, but he continued working on the publication of his writings.
Works
Al-Shaqāʾiq al-Nuʿmāniyya fī ʿUlamāʾ al-Dawla al-ʿUthmāniyya (Arabic: الشقائق النعمانية في علماء الدولة العثمانية, lit. 'The Anemones, on the Scholars of the Ottoman Era'), a biographical encyclopedia on the life and works of 552 scholars and sheikhs from the first Ottoman ruler, Osman I, to Suleiman the Magnificent, and is the primary source for the lives of scholars and scientists under the reign of Mehmed II.
Şaka'ikü'n-Nu'maniye fi-Ulemai'd-Devletü'l-Osmaniye (Turkish ed.), or Şakaik-ı Nu'maniye ve zeyilleri (Turkish ed.).
Key to Happiness and the Lamp of Lordship (Arabic: مفتاح السعادة ومصباح السيادة, romanized: Miftāḥ al-Saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-Siyādah; encyclopedia in Arabic. The great bibliographic encyclopedia Kashf al-Zunun of Kâtip Çelebi enlarged on the Miftāḥ al-Saʿāda, and in turn became the basis of Arabic-Latin and French translations by the European orientalists Gustav Leberecht Flügel and Barthélemy d'Herbelot, published in several volumes with the titles Bibliographical and Encyclopaedic Lexicon and Bibliothèque Orientale respectively.
“Taşköprüzade” enters the record as 16th c. Ottoman historian. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Taşköprüzade, 16th and Ottoman can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Taşköprüzade” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Taşköprüzade, 16th and Ottoman provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12221519. VIAF identifies the subject as 36909919. The Library of Congress control number is no88000627. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1495, 1561, 1525 and 1545.
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This entry incorporates text from “Taşköprüzade” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.