Dürr-i Meknûn

Dürr-i Meknûn (The Hidden Pearl(s)) is a 15th-century Ottoman Turkish cosmography in prose, traditionally attributed to Ahmed Bican. It is a compilation of highly divergent material, arranged in a time running from the "time before time" to the aftermath of the Apocalypse. Metamorphosis constitutes a dominant theme: against a background of cosmic transformation take place many sorts of changes in shape and content.

The first half of the 15th century had been crucial in the development of the Turkish language. This makes the Dürr-i Meknûn, with its volume and its varied subject matters, an important source for early Ottoman culture and language. The book was deliberately written by Bican for the common people in the vernacular Turkish he so strongly advocated against the widespread use among the learned elite of Arabic and Persian. Over a hundred surviving manuscript copies (it never appeared in print) testify to its popularity well into the 19th century.

Dürr-i Meknûn, an anonymous work, is usually attributed to Ahmed Bican. Linguistic analysis and a comparison to other works known to be from his hand seem to consolidate this tradition. Its autograph is unknown and might have been lost at some date.

The year of writing is unclear. Stéphane Yerasimos, assuming an eschatological mood in the work triggered by the Fall of Constantinople, dates the book shortly after 1453. The Dutch scholar Laban Kaptein, however, disputes this claim after a minute analysis of the work's End Times contents.

Bican has divided the work in 18 chapters, analogous to the 18,000 worlds created by God

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