Bahāʾī Meḥmed Efendi - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Hagen, Gottfried
Leiden
Brill
(867 words)
Bahāʾī Meḥmed Efendi (1010-64/1600-53) was an Ottoman intellectual who served twice as Şeyhülislâm (Shaykh al-Islām), leaving a contentious and contradictory legacy as a politician, scholar, and poet. Born in Istanbul, Bahāʾī exemplifies the early formation of an ulema (ʿulamāʾ) aristocracy of Istanbul: his father, a son of Hoca Sadeddin Efendi (Khōca Saʿduddīn, d. 1008/1599, historian, Şeyhülislâm, and tutor to several princes), had risen to the rank of kadı-asker (qāḍī-ʿasker) of Rumelia; two of Bahāʾī's uncles as well as his cousin Ebū Saʿīd (