Hulâsatü'l-Hey'et (The base of the astronomical science) Seydî Ali Reis (Introduction-research-text-index )

The beginning of the astronomy studies dates back to 4000 BC in the East. Mesopotamia, India and China made a great contribution to those researches and later, Hellenistic civilization also participated in this progress. But, in the West, because of the pressure of Catholic Church, scientific researches were stopped. On the other side, East used all those accretions to continue researches in this area. In the Ottoman Empire, until the period of the Muhammad the Qounqer, no important researches or scholars in the area of astronomy or the mathematics have been registered. After the conquest of Istanbul, Muhammad II - the Ottoman Sultan , invited Ali Kuşçu, the Scholar of Uluğ Bey. Ali Kuşçu was giving the lecture in the Ottoman moslem theological school and raised some very important astronomers, such as Takiyuddin, Mirim Çelebi etc. The part that we have elaborated is the translation of Ali Kuşçu's el-Fethiyye book. The translation is made by the Ottoman mariner Seydi Ali Reis. It is important to say that during the translation it is noticed that it wasn't linked only with Ali Kuşçu's book. Citations from the scholarship such are Tusi, Kadizade Rumi and Uluğ Bey were also used. In many libraries all around Turkey as well as the world, there are 27 exeplars of this book. The piece that we have elaborated on this book is the oldest dated work which was probably written by the translator himself and also it presented to Lawgiver Sulaiman, the Ottoman Sultan of that period. The book that is made up of 94 paper sheets and formed of the introduction and two articles . Also, there are many drawings, and at the end of the book there are seven tables, which include different numeric data. In the introduction, some basic information about astronomy, which should be known, are given. First article has six parts. Spheres and their characteristics, archers, horoscope, zodiac characteristics and planets are explained in first article. The second article has twelve parts. Climates, daytime and night, date, year, months and meridians are described. Most of the terms about astronomy and geometry are in Arabic and Persian. The work is consisted of four chapters: introduction, the research, the main text and index. In the introduction part, some informations about Seydi Ali Reis and his work are written, as well as the method and purpose of the paper itself. In the research part, the dictation and some fonetic and morfologic characteristics are explained. After the translation of the text, programme called Cibakaya made grammatical series.