Name Akshamsaddin Akshamsaddin | ||
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Akshamsaddin (Muhammad Shams al-Din bin Hamzah, Turkish: Ak Şemsettin) (b. 1389, Damascus - d. 16 February 1459, Göynük, Bolu), was an influential Ottoman religious scholar, poet, mystic saint, and guide of Mehmed the Conqueror. After completing his work with his master Shaykh Haji Bayram Wali, he found the Shamsiyya-Bayramiyya Sufi order. He is the founder of the lost grave of the companion, host, and esteemed standard-bearer of Prophet Muhammad, Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, in Constantinople.
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Akshamsaddin and medicine
In addition to his fame in religious sciences and Tasawwuf, Akshemsaddin was popular in the fields of medicine and pharmacology. There is not much reference to how he acquired this knowledge, but the Orientalist Elias John Wilkinson Gibb notes in his work History of Ottoman Poetry that Akshamsaddin learned from Haji Bayram Wali during his years with him. Akshamsaddin was also knowledgeable in the treatment of psychological and spiritual disorders.
Discovery of the microbe
Akshamsaddin mentioned the microbe in his work Maddat ul-Hayat (The Material of Life) about two centuries prior to Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek's discovery through experimentation: