At the invitation of the Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, on November 15, 2016, Dr Esmat Esmaeili, a lecturer at Seman University and guest lecturer from the Department of Iranian Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, gave a lecture in Arabic at our Institute. The theme of his lecture was the introductory text of the catalogue of Bayezid II’s (1481–1512) library.

Introducing the catalogue, Dr Esmaeili presented its specific characteristics from several aspects. Among other topics, she covered the characteristics of language found in the catalogue, emphasizing the mixture of Persian, Arabic and Ottoman languages in the text.

In her presentation, Dr Esmaeili compared the catalogue with other Ottoman manuscripts, which she had studied as part of her previous research and, therefore, managed to capture and illustrate other aspects of the specificities of the text.

The lecturer expounded on the explanation of the text according to the author of the manuscript. It is also apparent from the sorting rule summarised in five main points that in the library of Bayezid II, documents were available on numerous topics. During the examination of the catalogue, it became apparent that an emphasis was placed on the collection of works written in Persian. Furthermore, in addition to the texts written in prose, poems also held a prominent position in the Sultan’s library.

During the debate following her presentation and the subsequent informal discussion, the audience also had the opportunity to discuss the difficulties and issues encountered in the processing, and transcription of the Catalogue of Sultan Bayezid II.