Negotiating Avicennism in Postclassical Ottoman Philosophy: The Treatment of Hylomorphism in Hocazade’s (d. 893/1488) Gloss on Mullazade’s Hidaya al-hikma Commentary

Ḫocazāde’s gloss on Mullāzāde’s commentary on the Hidāya al-ḥikma is one of the few extant Ottoman paratexts on Avicennan natural philosophy. Remarkably, over a third of its lemmata are devoted to defending hylomorphism, underscoring its status as a central—and contested—issue in fifteenth-century Ottoman pedagogy, where scholars sought to secure an autonomous place for natural philosophy within a curriculum otherwise dominated by metaphysics and theology. While largely following Mullāzāde’s defense of Avicennism, Ḫocazāde adds clarifications and emendations aimed at addressing theological objections and guiding his contemporaries. In tandem with his Tahāfut al-falāsifa, where hylomorphism appears as a minor issue reconcilable with divine creation, Ḫocazāde’s gloss affirms the centrality of matter and form for scientific investigation in natural philosophy. Hylomorphism’s tension with kalām atomism reflects not the fifteenth-century Ottoman curricular incoherence but disciplinary compartmentalization: Avicennan physics could be taught as a constrained explanatory model—bracketing Neoplatonic doctrines—while kalām retained atomism for theological purposes. Ḫocazāde’s gloss thus offers a rare vantage point on how Ottoman scholars selectively affirmed, rejected, or reinterpreted Avicennism within the framework of postclassical kalām, contributing to the reception of Avicenna’s paradigms at Ottoman madrasas.