[On the pharmaceutical composition at the waqfiyye of Zaim Hadji Ibrahim Agha].

Abstract

This study is organized under two main sections. The first section, titled "The Ottoman Concept of Waqf", gives a brief account of waqfs, their roles and purposes. The second section under the title of "The Translation of the Document into the Turkish" constitutes our target research subject. The document examined was written by one of the Müteferrikas of the Imperial Court, Zaim Haci Ibrahim Agha, son of Hüseyin. It is registered among the documents of the Directorate of Pious Foundations: 739/259/173, 739/253/157 and dates 1176 (Hijri calendar), 1762-1763 (Gregorian calendar). The document is about a medical dimension of the waqfs, which was not much encountered before. It gives the contents of a medicine in detail, which was stated to be good for eye diseases. The ingredients of the medicine and their proportional amounts are described clearly. Then, how to prepare the medicine is also explained with equal clarity. Referring to the written medical works, the pronunciations of the ingredients in the content of the medicine are given textually. The names of some ingredients, though legible, whose meanings could not be found, are given in Turkish transcription with a question mark. Hereby I owe great many thanks to Mevlüt Cam, the Ottoman translator of the Directorate of Pious Foundations, who informed me about the existence of such a document.