A Sixteenth‐Century Ottoman Reader Calculating the Apocalypse

A Sixteenth‐Century Ottoman Reader Calculating the ApocalypseA Sixteenth‐Century Ottoman Reader Calculating the Apocalyps

Approximate Computation of DFT without Performing Any Multiplications: Applications to Radar Signal Processing

In many practical problems it is not necessary to compute the DFT in a perfect manner including some radar problems. In this article a new multiplication free algorithm for approximate computation of the DFT is introduced. All multiplications $(a\times b)$ in DFT are replaced by an operator which computes $sign(a\times b)(|a|+|b|)$. The new transform is especially useful when the signal processing algorithm requires correlations. Ambiguity function in radar signal processing requires high number of multiplications to compute the correlations. This new additive operator is used to decrease the number of multiplications. Simulation examples involving passive radars are presented

Books on Astrology, Astronomical Tables, and Almanacs in the Library Inventory of Bayezid II

This study focuses on those books pertaining to astrological and practical celestial pursuits that are listed in the inventory of manuscripts in the book treasury of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, commissioned by the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II from his royal librarian ʿAtufi in the year 908 (1502–3) and transcribed in a clean copy in 909 (1503–4). This unicum inventory preserved in the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára Keleti Gyűjtemény, MS Török F. 59) records over 5,000 volumes, and more than 7,000 titles, on virtually every branch of human erudition at the time. The Ottoman palace library housed an unmatched encyclopedic collection of learning and literature; hence, the publication of this unique inventory opens a larger conversation about Ottoman and Islamic intellectual/cultural history. The very creation of such a systematically ordered inventory of books raises broad questions about knowledge production and practices of collecting, readership, librarianship, and the arts of the book at the turn of the fifteenth century

Reading the Stars at the Ottoman Court: Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481-918/1512) and his Celestial Interests

This study seeks to determine the extent of the patronage of the science of the stars (ʿilm al-nuǧūm) at the court of the eighth Ottoman sultan Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481- 918/1512). Throughout the medieval and early modern Islamicate world munaǧǧims (astronomer-astrologers) offered rulers their expertise in calculating heavenly configurations and interpreting them with a view to predicting future events; here the Ottoman polity is no exception. In the case of Bāyezīd II, however, the sheer number of munaǧǧims employed and texts and instruments commissioned by or dedicated to the sultan unequivocally singles him out and makes it possible to further argue that his deliberate attempt to personally study and cultivate the science of the stars was inextricably related to the broader political, ideological, and cultural agendas at the time. The first part of the article provides statistical evidence on the exceptional nature of Bāyezīd’s patronization of the science of the stars based upon a number of archival documents, taqwīms (annual almanac-prognostications) and related texts presented to the sultan. Here a number of key munaǧǧims active at his court will also be introduced. The second part focuses upon Bāyezīd’s own learned interests and intellectual aspirations, and examine the celestial inquiries of the sultan in light of a few curious archival reports, textual evidence from surviving manuscripts, and testimonies of his contemporarie

Practicing Astral Magic in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Istanbul: A Treatise on Talismans Attributed to Ibn Kemāl (d. 1534)

The article discusses the topic of astral magic and its practice in the Ottoman Istanbul in the sixteenth century. It offers information on the occult arts and their understudies by the Ottoman sultans in the sixteenth century. Various alchemists and the astrologers worked with Sultan Bayezid II in order to fulfill the royal aims and interest on the sciences. The article also focuses on the Ottoman military campaigns against the Muslim politics, and oneiromancy

Authoring and Publishing in the Age of Manuscripts: the Columbia University Copy of an Ottoman Compendium of Sciences with Marginal Glossing

This study examines an early-seventeenth century copy of a popular book in Ottoman Turkish originally composed by Nevʿī Efendi (d. 1599) in the early 1570s. With around 150 extant copies available in almost every major Islamic manuscript collection across the world, Nevʿī Efendi's compendium, or the "fruits," of sciences (Netāyicü'l-fünūn) deserves to be called an early modern bestseller among the Ottoman reading public. The particular copy of the work located at Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Or. 360) is a notable one with numerous minhu records (i.e., marginal glosses one could trace back to the author) written in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. In this article, besides situating Nevʿī Efendi's work in the broader genre of taṣnīf al-ʿulūm (classification of sciences) in the Ottoman as well as the broader Islamicate realm of learning, I will pay closer attention to discussing the minhu notes that present intriguing insights into the questions of what a published work meant in the age of manuscripts, and how the continuous interventions on the text made by the author, and possibly by the copyists and readers, enrich as well as shuffle the "authentic" contents of the "published" version

The Sultan's Syllabus Revisited: Sixteenth Century Ottoman Madrasa Libraries and the Question of Canonization

This study revisits the question of the early modern Ottoman madrasa curriculum, which, ever since the famous Studia Islamica article of Nenad Filipovic and the late Shahab Ahmed in 2004, has come to be recognized as the “sultan’s syllabus,” implying a strict imposition of a centrally-designed course of study. By utilizing a host of endowment lists, book registers, and autobiographical writings of high- to low-ranking Ottoman scholars from the sixteenth century that escaped Ahmed’s and Filipovic’s attention, I aim to redress an argument that was based on a misinterpretation of a single document but has been extensively cited and recycled since its first articulation almost two decades ago. All of these sources, some of which have never or only partially received scholarly attention, shed more accurate light, not only on the scope of learning, teaching, and canon formation in the early modern Ottoman world of scholarship but also on the mediating role the Ottoman court played by supplying copies of books wherever and whenever needed

The Emotional Universe of Insecure Scholars in the Early Modern Ottoman Hierarchy of Learning

In this paper, I will focus on a particular Ottoman madrasa instructor from the so-called magnificent years of Süleyman's reign (r. 1520–66) whose self-narratives or “ego-documents,” scattered across a multitude of sources, illustrate the emotional states of a mid- to low-ranking member of the rigidly hierarchical Ottoman scholarly establishment. His is a richly documented case of an “exceptionally normal,” full of vivid details that allow us to decenter the available literature on early modern Islamicate and Ottoman intellectual history and its marked preference for the success stories of celebrated names over the failures of more marginal figures. In examining the writings of Ottoman scholars of lesser rank and social standing that are dispersed among their understudied private letter collections (münşeʾāt mecmūʿaları), autobiographical accounts, literary compositions, scholarly treatises, and even the paratextual records that one may locate in the manuscripts these scholars copied or possessed, one can reconstruct emotional pendulums that swung across various feelings in the face of ever-changing and challenging structural and circumstantial limitations. These limitations include more than just the financial insecurities and intellectual rivalries that were inherent both in the scholarly bureaucratic hierarchy and the overarching patronage system of the early modern Ottoman world of scholarship. One also should take into account how recurrent diseases, unexpected disasters, and physical distance to familiar people and places between rotational appointments left their indelible marks on the emotional canvas of Ottoman scholars

Global Stability of Generalized Within-host Chikungunya Virus Dynamics Models

This paper proposes two models of a general nonlinear within-host Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) dynamics. The production, incidence, proliferation and removal rates of all compartments are modeled by general nonlinear functions that satisfy a set of reasonable conditions. The second model takes into consideration two forms of infected host cells: (i) latently infected cells which do not produce the CHIKV, (ii) actively infected cells which generate the CHIKV particles. We show that all the solutions of the models are nonnegative and bounded. The global stability of the steady states of the models is proven by applying Lyapunov method and LaSalle’s invariance principle. We perform numerical simulations to complement the obtained theoretical results

Thermoluminescence study of Mn doped lithium tetraborate powder and pellet samples synthesized by solution combustion synthesis

In this paper, the thermoluminescence (TL) dosimetric characteristics under beta-ray, x-ray and gamma-ray excitations of powder and pellet Mn-doped lithium tetraborates (LTB) which were produced by solution combustion synthesis technique were investigated, and the results were compared with that of TLD-100 chips. The chemical composition and morphologies of the obtained LTB and Mn-doped LTB (LTB:Mn) were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with EDX. LTB:Mn was studied using luminescence spectroscopy. In addition, the effects of sintering and annealing temperatures and times on the thermoluminescence (TL) properties of LTB:Mn were investigated. The glow curves of powder samples as well as pellet samples exposed to different beta doses exhibited a low temperature peak at about 100 °C followed by an intense principal high temperature peak at about 260 °C. The kinetic parameters (E, b, s) associated with the prominent glow peaks were estimated using Tm-Tstop, initial rise (IR) and computerized glow curve deconvolution (CGCD) methods. The TL response of integral TL output increased linearly with increasing the dose in the range of 0.1-10 Gy and was followed by a superlinearity up to 100 Gy both for powder and pellet samples using beta-rays. Powder and pellet LTB:Mn were irradiated to a known dose by a linear accelerator with 6 and 18 MV photon beams, 6-15 MeV electron beams and a traceable 137Cs beam to investigate energy response. Further, TL sensitivity, fading properties and recycling effects related with beta exposure of LTB:Mn phosphor were evaluated and its relative energy response was also compared with that of TLD-100 chips. The comparison of the results showed that the obtained phosphors have good TL dose response with adequate sensitivity and linearity for the measurement of medical doses