Sadr al-Din Zade Al-Shirwani as an Interpreter of Ghazall in the 17th Century Ottoman World of Thought and the Sharh Tradition in the Example of Sharh al-Risala al-qudsiyya

This article, which focuses on Sadr al-Din Zade Al-Shirwani (d. 1036/1627), who was an eminent thinker in the 17th Century Ottoman history of thought, and his commentary on Ghazall s al-Risala al-qudsiyya, is written with two aims.One of these aims is to answer, in part, the following question of how were Ghazall s (d. 505/1111) thoughts understood and interpreted in 17th century Ottoman thinking?, based on Sadr al-Din Zade Al-Shirwani. The other is, in order to prove the value of books written in the sharh tradition, basing the work on a tangible example, to examine in detail al-Shirwani s commentary on al-Risala al-qudsiyya from the beginning, that is, the actual title. Thus, a new case for researchers of the sharh period is presented on the following questions are books referred to as commentaries (Sharh) in Islamic thought mere repetitions of earlier works and contain no new ideas? or are they original books, inspired by earlier texts, but surpassing them with new interpretations? Beginning with information about Sadr al-Din Zade al-Shirwani s life and works, in this article we will discuss the actual title of the al-Shirwani s commentary, which has been referred to by different names in bibliographies. Then, we will go on to provide a number of examples related to issues of kalam, establishing how a treatise of aka id transformed the creation of kalam.