Ottoman Literature, Books and Printing

Ottoman writers used Ottoman Turkish, Arabic and Persian, as well as Greek, Armenian, Hebrew and other languages spoken across the empire. Ottoman Turkish became a written language of administration and literature, combining a Turkish grammatical base with extensive Arabic and Persian vocabulary. Poetry, chronicles and religious works circulated mainly in handwritten books, made and read by particular people in homes, schools, court offices, mosques and libraries. Printing joined this book culture at different times for different language communities, and did not quickly replace manuscript copying.

On this page6 sections

Poetry and literary forms

A divan was a poet’s collected body of verse. The ghazal was a short lyric made of couplets: both lines of its opening couplet rhymed, and the second line of each later couplet returned to that rhyme. Poets used this tight pattern for love, devotion, reflection or praise. A qasida was a longer poem that could praise a ruler or patron. The mesnevi used pairs of rhyming lines, with a new rhyme for each couplet; that flexible sequence made it useful for extended stories. Many poems also followed aruz, a metrical system that arranged long and short syllables in repeating patterns.

Poets learned these forms by reading earlier works and answering them. A nazire was a new poem written in response to a model, often using the same meter and rhyme while changing the speaker, imagery or subject. In sixteenth-century Istanbul, Bâkî brought his ghazals to the poet Zâtî’s shop near Beyazıt Mosque for comment and wrote responses to celebrated poems. Such encounters joined craft, criticism and literary reputation. Bâkî also studied in a madrasa, a school of advanced Islamic learning, before pursuing a career among scholars and court officials.

Fuzûlî worked in the Iraqi Ottoman literary world and composed in Turkish, Persian and Arabic. His Leylâ vü Mecnûn, a long mesnevi, retold the lovers’ story through a sequence of couplets. Different language choices let writers address learned readers across regional and religious settings, while local poetic circles developed their own voices.

In Bursa in 1409, Süleyman Çelebi completed Vesîletü’n-necât, a poem recounting the birth and life of the Prophet Muhammad. Known as the Mevlid, it was read across Ottoman lands from the time of its composition, especially on the Prophet’s birthday, and was also set to music. This devotional poem shows how a manuscript could serve as a text for recitation, reaching listeners beyond people who owned or read a copy.

Prose, chronicles and travel writing

Ottoman prose served several purposes. Court historians described reigns, campaigns and political events; biographical collections organized accounts of poets, scholars and officials. These books might be commissioned or supported by patrons, and their authors selected material for readers interested in rulers, careers or learning. Geography, practical knowledge and religious instruction also appeared in prose works.

In the seventeenth century, Evliya Çelebi wrote the ten-volume Seyahatname, or Book of Travels, from decades of journeys through Ottoman lands and beyond. Its chapters combine descriptions of cities, buildings, occupations and local customs with stories and the author’s own observations. Kâtib Çelebi, a scholar and compiler, drew on books and administrative knowledge in works on geography and bibliography. Prose could thus collect information for readers who wanted to understand places, books and the workings of a large empire.

Copyists, paper and manuscript circulation

Before print became established, a reader who wanted a book usually needed a copy made by hand. A patron might commission a trained calligrapher to copy a text onto prepared sheets, arrange the pages, add headings and leave space for decoration. A copyist could write a colophon, a note at the end identifying the scribe or completion date. Wealthy patrons might pay illuminators to add gold and painted designs and binders to assemble and protect the finished leaves; practical copies could be much plainer.

A manuscript could be corrected while it was copied, and readers might later add ownership notes, marginal comments or records of reading. Each new copy involved another act of selection and transmission, so versions of a work could differ. Books circulated through purchase, gifts, inheritance and endowment. Bookshops and professional scribes supplied texts, while scholars and students also copied passages for their own use. A surviving ownership note can show who later held a book, even when it does not name the person who first commissioned it.

Libraries and readers

Mosques and madrasas kept books for instruction and religious learning. A founder could give books and income to an endowed library, with a deed specifying a librarian’s duties, hours or rules for lending. Early collections sometimes let readers borrow volumes; from the seventeenth century, libraries more often required people to consult books on site. The change helped keep valuable collections together while librarians monitored their use.

By the second half of the seventeenth century, Istanbul also had independent library buildings staffed specifically to care for books and readers. In the eighteenth century, Ahmed III’s library at Topkapı continued court patronage of books and reading. A reader might consult a volume for study, copy a passage into another notebook or listen as someone read it aloud. These practices connected endowed collections to readers without requiring each person to own a manuscript.

Printing in different communities

Printing arrived in Ottoman cities through several language communities before the state-authorized press for Ottoman Turkish. Jewish printers in Constantinople produced a Hebrew book in 1493. An Armenian press began work in Istanbul in 1567, and the Greek monk Nikodemos Metaxas brought a press and Greek type to the city in 1627. These presses served particular religious and linguistic audiences, and each depended on printers, type, paper, patrons and buyers.

İbrahim Müteferrika and Mehmed Said received a license for a Turkish-language press in 1727. Its first book, printed in 1729, was the Vankulu Lugati, an Ottoman Turkish translation of an Arabic dictionary. For a printed page, workers arranged reusable metal letters into lines, inked the type and pressed it onto paper; they could then reset the letters for another page. The license endorsed a program of dictionaries, history, geography and sciences rather than core religious texts; four learned men served as proofreaders and sixteen scholars endorsed the venture. Printing therefore required both a workshop and official and scholarly cooperation.

Müteferrika’s shop had four presses for books and two for maps, with five recorded workers. Most print runs were about five hundred copies, and the books did not always sell cheaply. The press made multiple copies from movable type, but its modest runs and uneven readership did not displace manuscript copying. Handwritten texts continued to be produced for study, worship, literature and practical use, while printed books offered another route to a fixed edition.

Newspapers and nineteenth-century literature

The government began publishing Takvim-i Vekayi in 1831 as its official newspaper. A newspaper appeared in recurring issues, carrying state announcements and accounts of events to readers who might not have access to court documents or a library. Later newspapers and periodicals created space for literary writing and public argument as publishers, editors and writers reached new audiences.

During the Tanzimat era of nineteenth-century reform, Şinasi and Namık Kemal wrote journalism, plays and prose. In 1860, Şinasi helped Agâh Efendi launch the Tercüman-ı Ahval newspaper and wrote its opening statement. The paper serialized Şinasi’s play Şair Evlenmesi, which criticized marriage arranged through family matchmaking; readers encountered a play in parts as new issues appeared. Translation also brought European literary forms into Ottoman Turkish publishing. Manuscript poetry and older genres continued alongside these new publishing routines and reading networks.