ABSTRACT
When holding an Ottoman biographical work, a reader prepares to enter a garden. In the long tradition of classical Islamic literature, Ottoman biographers gave their books names of gardens: Gardens of Sweet Basil, Gardens of Peonies, Rose Gardens of Poets, Garden of the Friends of God, and Orchard of Spiritual Knowledge are some of the titles which invite us, the readers, into the gardens of the biographers. We are yet to understand, though, the significance of these titles for the Ottoman biographers and their readers. For many, the naming of books after gardens is seen as a rhetorical device without any connection to Ottoman realities. As demonstrated by the historians of early modern literary traditions, however, rhetoric, style and form were essential parts of what the biographers wanted to share with their readers.1
