Şırnak Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi

Öz

Abū al-Baqā al-Kafawī is one of the famous scholars who served as a muderris, mufti and qadi in the 17th century Ottoman society and left his mark on his time. Al-Kafawī, whose father was also a scholar, is a scholarly and competent figure who provides information in various fields of Islamic sciences in his works. Especially in Tuhfetü'ş-şāhān, he touches upon issues that are the subject of debate in many sciences from fiqh to kalām, from mysticism to ethics, from astronomy to exegesis. More importantly, in a significant part of the work, he explained the rulings of many current jurisprudential issues under the headings of ‘issues’, and in a way, he portrayed the religious, cultural and social life, customs and traditions of the 17th century Ottoman society. In this respect, Tuhfetü'ş-şāhān resembles a fatwa book. In this study, some of Kafawī's views on Islamic finance and methods of acquiring capital are analysed, and his fatwas on money foundations, mu'amala-i shar'iyya, some fāsid contracts, haram contracts, and halal and haram in shopping are explained. The research is important, because it analyses the fatwas of a scholar who was very familiar with the commercial affairs of the people due to his position as a qadi at a time when the Ottoman state was experiencing a great economic crisis. As it is known, every crisis gives birth to its own opportunists. In the 17th century Ottoman society, people who took advantage of the crisis to deceive the public, engage in hoarding, and resort to interest and similar dubious transactions emerged. New opportunists emerged who tried to turn the economic crisis in which the state and the people fell into in their favour and resorted to methods of finance and capital acquisition that were not permitted by Islam in mutual commercial relations. Probably based on this motive, Kafawī, instead of analysing the rulings on shopping in a holistic and fiqh systematic way, included current issues related to the commercial activities of the people of that period, in other words, he explained the rulings of various technical issues specific to the commercial transactions of the 17th-century Ottoman society. In addition, considering the conditions of his time, al-Kafawī deviated from the general opinion of the Hanafī madhhab on some issues for the sake of the good and to prevent injustice, and in some issues, he produced ways out to eliminate the fāsid condition and make the transactions valid and halal. Thus, he ensured the sustainability of commercial transactions within the boundaries of Islamic law. In particular, he put forward an original view on the transactions carried out in money foundations, which we have not come across in the literature and which is not included in the works written on this subject. This study is also crucial because it analyses the views of such a learned scholar. Although there are various academic studies on the Ottoman economy and commercial activities, it has been noticed that there are not enough studies focusing only on commercial deviations and solutions. Again, in this research, not only al-Kafawī's views were revealed, but also their conformity with the general views of the Hanafi madhhab, to which he belonged, was tried to be determined. In addition, this research is one of the first academic studies on al-Kafawī's jurisprudence in Turkish. Although some studies on Tuhfetü'ş-şāhān have been carried out before, they explained the general features of the work, did not analyse its content, and did not identify and analyse al-Kafawī's views. The main source of the research is al-Kafawī's Tuhfetü'ş-şāhān. In addition to the printed and manuscript copies of the work in the Ottoman archives, classical and modern sources on Islamic economics and finance were also used throughout the research. Firstly, information about the economic situation of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century will be given. Then, within the framework of al-Kafawī's views, the shopping culture of the Ottoman people at that time, some financial and capital acquisition methods will be explained.