Abstract

This article examines the role and consequences of scholarly encounters and interactions in the early modern Muslim world. It argues that the biography and intellectual formation of Veliyüddin Cârullah (d. 1738), a vigorous and reflective Ottoman scholar who travelled from the capital Istanbul to engage with intellectual circles in Arab and other Kurdish centres of the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire and returned with a more critical and interdisciplinary vision, contributed to the cultural and intellectual activity of the early eighteenth century. The article highlights his reading practices, teaching activities, and his writings based on his margin annotation on manuscript copies, in order to better elaborate his vast knowledge and intellectual networks. It concludes that interactions with scholarship in the eastern lands of the empire were as significant for the formation of Istanbul intellectuals as their contacts with the West in the same period.