NEW: Apocalypse and the Antichrist Dajjal in Islam, 2011 English edition
The 2007 critical edition of Ahmed Bican’s cosmography Dürr-i meknûn
(DM) has greatly stimulated interest in what must be considered the
book’s prequel, Eindtijd en Antichrist (English summary), a detailed analysis of DM’s
Chapter 17 about the ‘Signs of the Hour’.
To meet demand a revised English edition of Eindtijd en Antichrist
will be published in the course of 2011.
Title: |
Apocalypse and the Antichrist Dajjal in Islam. Ahmed Bijan's Eschatology Revisited |
Author: |
Laban Kaptein |
Year: |
2011 |
ISBN: |
97-89-08160961-6 |
Publisher: |
Laban Kaptein, Asch (published privately) |
Language: |
English |
Binding: |
paperback, approx. 248 pages |
Originally written in 1997 in the Dutch language, this study was and remains the sole monograph devoted entirely to Ahmed Bican’s eschatology. It is shown that Bican was not an apocalyptic and that he did not in any way employ End Time imagery to comment on his own times and tribulations. Next the remaining question gets answered: why then did Ahmed Bican write what he wrote in the way that he did?
There is also a hearty discussion on method: it appears that the field of Middle East Studies needs a thorough revision of its ways of studying the time honoured genre of The End of the World. Only too often is the research guided by one’s personal expectations about a given period rather than its relevant contemporary texts. Then there’s the abundance of plain truisms, rounded Year 1000’s and sweeping statements that obscure more than they clarify. And surely no meaningful results can come from the sort of reasoning that proclaims persons or periods to be apocalyptic because they are either anonymous, silent on the matter or absent altogether... which is then quoted as ‘proof’ that they must be apocalyptic, why else would they try and hide it!
To pre-order the book (approx. €50) or register your interest, please send an E-mail to .
Dürr-i Meknûn (DM)
2007 saw the publication of the first critical text edition of the Dürr-i Meknûn , the Turkish cosmography by the famous dervish Ahmed Bican (Ahmed Bidjan, Bijan) Yazıcıoğlu. The publishing of this 15th century work, edited by the Dutch Turkologist Laban Kaptein, is particularly significant for research into culture and language in the early Ottoman period. The Dürr-i Meknûn, ›The Hidden Pearl‹, does indeed appear to be a treasure trove of exceptional material, some of which had remained concealed. Two examples include passages about deer worship and a tale about the Flood.
Ottoman cosmography
The dervish and scholar Ahmed Bican († ca. 1466) was a propagandist of the Turkish language. He himself wrote, without exception, in Turkish, and as no other worked as a translator and compiler of amusing literature on the basis of works which, at that time, were written in the dominant language, Arabic. He is generally considered to be one of the most important originators of Turkish culture. For example, the well-known legend about the founding of Istanbul can be traced back to his Dürr-i Meknûn. This work is now to be published for the first time in an academic edition.
In the Dürr-i Meknûn, Bican approaches the world from the Creation according to cosmographic tradition. Details about the heavenly bodies are followed by tales of old peoples, prophets and divine punishments, discourses on wondrous stones, images, magical and medicinal plants and descriptions of mythical creatures, after which Bican provides ›information‹ about faraway countries, seas and islands with their bizarre inhabitants (e.g., the cynocephali), and concludes with the terrors that await us at the end of the world.
One particularly remarkable passage is the writer’s personal tirade against the worship of deer and of springs by the people around him, which was an open heathen cult within the Ottoman Empire. Another ›pearl‹ is a tale about Ken‘an, one of the sons of Nuh (Noah), who refused to join his father in the ark, intending to survive the Flood in a kind of diving bell that he had devised himself. He is punished by God for his disobedience with a supernatural bladder infection and drowns ›in his own piss ‹ inside his own invention.
Critical Edition
The edition contains the complete text of the Dürr-i Meknûn in Ottoman script, divided into sections (§), and provided with critical apparatus, register, paraphrasing and extensive commentary in German. The book also includes a new, comprehensive discussion of the Forschungsstand, including, among other things, new material on the ›Jeunes de Langue‹ Joseph Brüe, Alexandre Philibert Deval and Étienne Roboly, who translated a number of chapters from the Dürr-i Meknûn in the early 18th century. The considerable scope and range of the Dürr-i Meknûn means that it also has considerable lexicographical significance. For this reason, systematic attention is given in this new edition to Bican‘s use of idiom.
Ahmed Bican
Little is known of the life of Ahmed Bican. We do know that he belonged to the religious Bayramiyye order and that he came from Gelibolu (Gallipoli). On account of his austere way of life – in addition to religious fasting, he also advocated foregoing sleeping at night – he came to be known as ›Bican‹, the Lifeless, an epithet with which he went down in history. He is thought to have died in 1466.
However pale and scrawny Ahmed Bican may have looked, he certainly did not lack vitality and drive. He has a number of successful religious and encyclopaedic works to his name, which were transcribed and printed over the centuries. Without doubt his most well-known book is the Envârü’l- ‘âşıkîn, a popular religious work that was widely read right into the 20th century.
Ahmed Bican came from a literary family. Both his father, Salih Yazıcı, and his older brother Mehmed, the author of the famed Muhammediyye, were eminent writers. The gravestones in Gelibolu for Ahmed and Mehmed, and their meditation cells, are tourist attractions even today. Nonetheless, little is known about the life and work of these important authors. Further research will mean a substantial enrichment of our knowledge of old Ottoman and the early Ottoman periods
The End of the World and the Antichrist (Eindtijd en Antichrist)
In 1997, Laban Kaptein published his doctoral thesis Eindtijd en Antichrist (The end of the world and the Antichrist), the first monograph dedicated entirely to Ahmed Bican and the Dürr-i Meknûn. Chapter 17 in this book is devoted to the end of the world, and in particular to the little researched Islamic Antichrist: the terrible Deccal. The analysis that is presented of topoi and themes from the account of the end of the world represents an entirely new, more critical, approach to Islamic eschatological material.
The doctoral thesis, which also includes a facsimile text with critical notes and a translation of Chapter 17, manifests the desirability of publishing the complete Dürr-i Meknûn. With the present edition Kaptein is fulfilling an academic commitment.
A final remark
There is a backlog of hundreds of major works from the golden age of Turkish culture that require academic analysis for improving access. However, in its study of Turkey and the Middle East, the present academic world is starting to focus increasingly on modern Islam and journalistic themes and less on the rich past, not to mention opening up the sources. This is why securing any kind of relevant funding for this research through a Dutch institute turned out to be impossible. This multi-year project was completed in private time and entirely with private funds.