Single hadith commentaries in the ottoman empire the Kâfiyecî example

Since they are structurally the texts that convey a moment of the Prophet, the hadith narrations usually do not include the context of the referred event. This inevitably led to the need to explain such narrations immediately after the death of the Prophet. The studies in the form of a glossary, for which started with the gradual divergence of generations from the context of the referred event, turned into explanatory texts whose contents were expanded in later times; and thus, the first written hadith commentaries emerged. The diversity of requirements influenced the diversification of commentary activities; emerging in the tenth century commentary tradition, the single hadith commentaries have taken its place in the history of hadith literature from the early period. A general evaluation of the single hadith commentaries written extensively in the Ottoman period and geography constitutes the center of this study. Examining the development line and its prominent aspects of the single hadith tradition, which became a tradition in the Ottoman Empire, will also enable us to recognize the intellectual movements that dominate the period. The first known single hadith commentator in the Ottoman Empire, Kâfiyecî (d. 879/1474), as in various fields to his treatise, reflected the accumulation of knowledge to his work titled Hulâsatu'l-akvâl fî hadîsi "İnneme'l-a'mâl". This study precisely aims to understand his method applied in content and writing of this tract.