Molla Gürâni
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Molla Gürâni was a 15th-century Ottoman administrator and mufti. He became the chief judge of the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed II after the death of Murad II in 1451. Gürâni was part of Mehmed's council during the conquest of Constantinople, and he wrote an account of the conquest that was sent to the Mamluk sultan. In 1480, he was appointed mufti of Istanbul or Shaykh al-Islām, a position he held for the rest of his life, serving under both Mehmed II and Bayezid II. Gürâni built several institutions in Istanbul, and he died there in 1488.
Gürâni was born on August 28, 1406, or in 1410 or in 1411, in a place called Gûrân in Esfarayen or in Shahrizor or near Diyarbekir or near Halabja, and given the name Şemseddin Ahmed b. İsmâil or Şerefeddin or Şehâbeddin.[1][2] He was later also given the honorific mollâ or mevlânâ and became known by the nisba Gürânî, Şehrizorî, Hemedânî, Tebrîzî, Kâhirî, or Rûmî, thus his usual appellation Molla Gürâni.[3] He may have been of Kurdish ancestry.[4][5]
He studied qira'at, kalam, tafsir, nahw (Arabic syntax), and fiqh in Baghdad and Arabic language and literature in Hasankeyf.[6] At 17, he moved on to study in Damascus for five years and then to Jerusalem.[7] After that, he moved on to Cairo, where he studied hadith, qira'at, tafsir, and fiqh, and received his ijazah from Ibn Hajar.[8]
Mamluk career
Gürâni was appointed mudarris of fiqh at the Barquq Madrasa in Cairo and participated in scholarly assemblies in the court of Mamluk Sultan Sayf al-Din Jaqmaq, although in 1440 after a dispute with another scholar, he was found guilty of insulting the scholar's ancestors, sentenced to 80 blows with a rod (değnek), removed from his madrasa position, and exiled to Damascus.[9][10]
