İsmail Bey. Hulviyyât-ı Şahî. Arabic-Turkish manuscript, dated A.H. 1098 (July 1687 C.E.).

İsmail Bey. Hulviyyât-ı Şahî. Arabic-Turkish manuscript, dated A.H. 1098 (July 1687 C.E.).

251 leaves. 8vo (8.2 x 6.0 in). Text written in naskh script with diacritics, featuring 17 lines per page. Titles in red ink, main text in black ink, on European watermarked paper. The manuscript exhibits signs of wear, including tears, missing portions affecting readability, and water stains, but remains in overall moderate condition. The first leaf of the index is missing. Bound in a later 19th-century decorative purple (morado) print-press binding.

A significant 15th-century work by İsmail Bey of the Candaroğulları dynasty, Hulviyyât-ı Şahî is a Turkish prose treatise on fürû‘ al-fiqh, structured into 78 chapters. The text is written in a clear naskh script, preserving linguistic and grammatical features of its time. As a product of post-Byzantine Anatolia under emerging Turkish rule, this manuscript stands as a premier first-hand example of the development of Turkish linguistic and cultural dominance in the region.

Of particular importance is İsmail Bey’s Central Asian ancestry, which he acknowledges within the text. His lexical choices and phrasing provide deep insights into the roots of 15th-century Turkish, preserving some of its most archaic elements. Furthermore, the work reflects the complex social dynamics of Anatolia during this period, offering valuable clues about linguistic interactions, cultural exchanges, and administrative structures in the post-Byzantine era.

This manuscript is analyzed in a study that includes an introduction on the author, phonetic and morphological features of the text, a full transcription with Arabic portions in transliteration, and a glossary. The phonological analysis compares its language to Old and modern Turkish, while the morphological section categorizes nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and verbs, presenting them with their respective verses. The text section is numbered by page and line, with annotations on Qur’anic verses, Hadiths, and Arabic excerpts. The glossary provides definitions with references to their occurrences in the manuscript.

İsmail Bey (b. 1419 – d. 1479) ruled the Candaroğulları principality between 1443 and 1461. Historical records, including waqf documents, indicate that he used the honorific title Kemaleddin.