Idrīs Bitlīsī, Clerkly Historiography and Islamic Paradigm in the Ottoman Historiography

The presence of Iranian scholars and scientists and the support of the sultans and princes of it, the Persian language, literature and historiography got a special place in the Ottoman Empire. Under the patronage of the Ottoman court, several historical works were written. Idris Bitlisi has a special place among the Persian historians of the Ottoman court, and he can be considered as the most prominent representative of Persian writing and Iranian historiography in the Ottoman court. After presenting a description of the life of Idris Bitlisi, focusing on the text of Hasht Bihisht and Salim Shahnameh as his two historiographical works, the present study aims to identify the main components of his history writing and historiography and explain these components in the final step. The findings of this research show that the detailed report of events, using artificial and literary prose, the mixing of text with poems, verses, and hadiths, the lack of sufficient references to the sources of the narrations, and the Regular division of contents are the most important features of his history writing and the Presenting an imperial image of the Ottoman Empire, the effort to legitimize the Ottomans, using the historical narrative to serve the political purposes of the Ottoman state, placing the court in the center of the narrative, not confining to quoting political history, paying attention to governmental, scientific and social institutions, influential men and scholars, and pay attention to the conditions of neighboring nations are among his historiographical features. Based on the findings of this research, it is possible to prove that Bitlisi's use of complicated and artificial prose aimed to establish his position in the Ottoman court and present an imperial image of the Ottoman Empire, and legitimize it to deal with rivals such as the Safavids and Mamluks.