Sicill-i Osmani

Sicill-i Osmani yahut Tezkire-i Meşahir-i Osmaniye ("The Ottoman Register, or Memorial of Famous Ottomans") is an Ottoman Turkish biographical dictionary by Mehmed Süreyya Bey, described by Nuri Akbayar, editor of its modern edition, as the last and most remarkable link in the Ottoman biographical tradition. ¹ It was printed at the Matbaa-i Amire in Istanbul in four volumes totalling 2,420 pages: volume 1 in 1308 AH (1890/91) with 451 pages, volumes 2 and 3 in 1311 AH, and volume 4, undated, with 906 pages; the latest death recorded in its appendices is in Shawwal 1316 (February 1899), so printing is taken to have finished soon after. ¹ A facsimile was made in England in 1971. ¹

Akbayar notes that earlier Ottoman biographical works were mostly confined to a single profession, office or art, or a set period, whereas the Sicill aimed to embrace Ottoman biography in both time and field; hence its author kept each biography as brief as possible and called it a "register" (sicil), a term not used before in this tradition. ² It contains nearly 17,000 biographies, the most comprehensive work in Ottoman biography. ³ It is dominated by the Ottoman bureaucracy: the inner and outer palace services and the learned, scribal, civil and military establishments of the capital and provinces, then poets, calligraphers and Sufi shaykhs, with few musicians. ² The author took a special interest in people reputed to be saints and in holy fools (meczup), while the founders of mosques, schools and fountains receive the least information. ²

The author drew on the Ottoman chronicles, the Hadikatü'l-Vüzera and its continuations for grand viziers, the Sefinetü'r-Rüesa for chief scribes, the Devhatü'l-Meşayih for shaykhs al-Islam, al-Shaqa'iq al-Nu'maniyya and its continuations for the learned, the anthologies of poets, the Tuhfe-i Hattatin, hagiographies, obituaries and lists of appointments and dismissals. ² His most original source was gravestone inscriptions, on which many entries were built or corrected; Akbayar sees the size of this effort in the extent of Istanbul's cemeteries at the time and how much of them has since vanished. ^{2 3}

It was republished by the Economic and Social History Foundation of Turkey with the Ministry of Culture in the Yurt series as no. 30, prepared by Nuri Akbayar and transcribed from the old script by Seyit Ali Kahraman, Istanbul, April 1996. ^{4 5} The entries are arranged alphabetically, and each ends with a reference in parentheses to the volume and page of the first edition, such as "(I. 170)". ⁶ Akbayar notes as defects of the first edition its page layout, ill-suited to a dictionary, and frequent typesetting errors, and records a supplement by Mehmet Zeki Pakalın (1886–1972) in nineteen notebooks kept in the Turkish Historical Society library in Ankara. ³

• Ebussuud Efendi, shaykh al-Islam: a detailed entry with his posts and their dates, and his death in 983 AH. ⁷
• Shaykh Edebali: scholar of Konya and father-in-law of Osman Gazi. ⁸