Molla Muhammad Bik

Mawla Muhyi al-Din Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Hanafi, known as Muhammad Bik. He was one of the mamluks of Sultan Bayezid. He came to love learning and gave up the path of the amirs. He studied with a group of scholars, including Mawla Muzaffar al-Din al-Ajami and Mawla Muhyi al-Din al-Fanari. He then served Ibn Kamal Pasha and became his assistant in teaching, and afterwards he moved between madrasas ².

His mind became disordered, and then he recovered. He travelled by sea to Egypt, but Christians captured him, and some of his friends bought him back from them. He then returned to Constantinople, and Sultan Suleiman gave him the post of the madrasa of Bursa, then the madrasa of Bayezid Khan in Edirne, and then the judgeship of Damascus. He entered Damascus on the eleventh of Safar in the year 946, and was removed from it in Safar of the year 949. He went back to Anatolia, where his health was severely damaged. During his illness he was given the judgeship of Egypt, and he set out for it in winter, but death overtook him on the road. He died in the town of Kutahya. He loved learning and its people, and loved the Sufis. He was skilled in the rational sciences, had knowledge of mathematics, and wrote glosses on some books ¹.