Yusuf Bahri Efendi
Yusuf Bahri Efendi was a versatile Ottoman hadith scholar active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. According to an academic article by Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Eren of Selçuk University’s Faculty of Theology, published in the journal İSTEM, he was originally from Vezirköprü; his long scholarly career in Çorum rests not on his birthplace but on the more than forty years he served there.
Education and Journey to Egypt
Having completed his education in Amasya and Istanbul, Yusuf Bahri returned to his hometown of Vezirköprü, where he spent several years teaching and preaching, copying four or five manuscripts during this period. He then travelled to Egypt, where for six years he attended the lessons of the leading hadith and lexicography scholar Murtazâ al-Zabîdî (d. 1205 AH/1790) and received several diplomas (icazetname) from him. He returned to Anatolia as a major authority in hadith, Islamic law and Sufism.
His Years in Çorum
On his return from Egypt, Yusuf Bahri was appointed professor at the Feyziyye Madrasa in Çorum and put in charge of its library, spending more than forty years at the centre of the city’s scholarly life. According to Mehmet Eren’s research, this madrasa library was the first library of the Ottoman-era Çorum; it had been founded in 1787 by Süleyman Fevzi Paşa, roughly a century before the library Ahmet Feyzi Efendi founded in 1878. The official list published by the Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism similarly states that he arrived in Çorum around 1785 and settled there after marrying a woman from the Seydimoğlu family.
Through training students, writing and copying books, and enriching the library, he is considered to have made a significant contribution to the scholarly, religious and social life of Çorum in his time; through the students to whom he granted diplomas, his influence extended beyond Çorum as well.
Works
Yusuf Bahri’s unfinished commentary on the first chapter of Qadi Iyad’s (d. 544 AH/1149) al-Shifa, titled Atâü’l-kâdiri’l-feyyâz, is considered the strongest evidence of his high standing in the Islamic sciences. Known for his fine, legible handwriting, Yusuf Bahri copied numerous manuscripts, nearly all of which survive today at the Çorum Hasan Paşa Library; official sources put the number of these copied works at 78.
Death
Sources disagree on the date of Yusuf Bahri Efendi’s death: the official list from the Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism gives 1828, while Mehmet Eren’s academic article dates it to 1245 AH (1829-30), and some sources cite 1241 AH (1825-26). Sources agree, however, that he died in Çorum and that his students built a mausoleum at his grave.