Muslih al-Din al-Qastallani al-Rumi

Muslih al-Din Mustafa al-Qastallani al-Rumi al-Hanafi was one of the mawlas of Anatolia. He served Mulla Khidr Beg and taught at some madrasas. When Sultan Muhammad Khan built the eight madrasas in Constantinople, he gave him one of them. He never stopped studying and teaching, and he used to claim that if he were given all eight madrasas he could teach three lessons a day in each of them ².

He was then appointed judge of Bursa three times, then judge of Edirne the same number of times, and then judge of Constantinople. Sultan Muhammad later appointed him judge of the army. He did not tiptoe around people and always spoke the truth. This made life hard for Vizier Muhammad Pasha al-Qaramani, who proposed dividing the judgeship of the army between a judge for Rumeli and a judge for Anatolia. He was removed from office in the reign of Bayezid II, and a daily allowance of one hundred dirhams was assigned to him ¹.

The author of al-Kawakib al-Sa'ira says that al-Qastallani kept on eating hashish and opium, although he was clever, outstanding in the sciences and quick in debate. He reported of himself that he had read Ibn Sina's "al-Shifa" through in a few nights. He did not concern himself with writing books, because he was busy with teaching and judging, but he did write glosses on the commentary on the creed, a treatise in which he listed seven problems and explained them, and glosses on the four introductions that Sadr al-Shari'a wrote, in which he responded to the glosses of Mulla Ali al-Arabi. He died that year in Constantinople and was buried beside Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (may God be pleased with him) ³.