Kashf al-Zunun

Kashf al-Zunun 'an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun (The Removal of Doubt from the Names of Books and the Arts) is a bibliographic encyclopedia of books and sciences compiled by Turkish polymath Kâtip Çelebi. It was written in Arabic and was based on the Miftāḥ al-Saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-Siyādah by the c.16th Ottoman historian, Taşköprüzade. However the Kaşf substantially enlarges it, cataloging titles of approximately 15,000 books; 9,500 names of authors; and 300 sciences and arts. The work is seen as a significant example of and contribution to Ottoman historiography.

At the age of twenty-five in 1633, while in Aleppo, Celebi began compiling and composing the work; it occupied him for the next twenty years until its completion in 1652. An account of this is contained in another of his widely read books, "Mizan al-Haq," where he writes:

"On my stay in Aleppo, I would visit bookshops to browse, and then when I had returned to Istanbul and came into some money, I began acquiring books and letters. In 1638, a relative died and left me a more substantial legacy, which was spent in large part collecting the great works which I had seen in Aleppo, Istanbul and in the public repositories of the Sultanate of Oman".

Celebi died suddenly in 1657, leaving many works in unfinished or draft form.