Ibn Kemal

Şemseddin Ahmed (1469–1534), better known by his pen name Ibn Kemal (also Ibn Kemal Pasha) or Kemalpaşazâde ("son of Kemal Pasha"), was an Ottoman historian, Shaykh al-Islām, jurist and poet. He was born into a distinguished military family in Edirne and as a young man he served in the army and later studied at various madrasas and became the Kadı of Edirne in 1515. He had Iranian roots on his mother's side. He became a highly respected scholar and was commissioned by the Ottoman ruler Bayezid II to write an Ottoman history (Tevārīh-i Āl-i Osmān, "The Chronicles of the House of Osman"). During the reign of Selim the Resolute, in 1516, he was appointed as military judge of Anatolia and accompanied the Ottoman army to Egypt. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent he was appointed as the Shaykh al-Islām, i.e. supreme head of the ulama, a post which he held until his death. Kemalpaşazâde was a crucially important figure in the codification of the Hanafi school of thought in its Ottoman iteration.