Saʿdeddīn Efendi was a renowned Ottoman chief jurisconsult, influential statesman, eminent scholar, and prolific translator of Arabic and Persian works into Turkish.
Prognostic Dreams, Otherworldly Saints, and Caliphal Ghosts
comprises a critical edition, English translation, and a facsimile of his hagiographic work on controversial Ottoman sultan Selim I (“the Grim”). Saʿdeddīn’s
Selimname
consists of a preface and twelve anecdotes in which Selim I is portrayed as a divinely ordained sultan who delves into the realm of meditation, communicates with otherworldly saints and the “rightly guided” caliphs, and foretells the future.