 At the request of the Sadrazam or Grand Vizier Halil Hamit Pasha ("Paşa" in modern Turkish) (1782–1785), and of the Fleet Admiral Cezayirli Hasan Pasha, he was appointed to a professorship in mathematics at the new Naval College in Kasımpaşa, on the Golden Horn, in Istanbul where he worked with other Ottoman reformers such as the Franco-Hungarian military engineer and aristocrat François Baron de Tott.Gelenbevi received an award from the Emperor Sultan Selim III for his very accurate ballistic computations.Gelenbevi Ismail published some thirty five scientific articles including a treatise on the game of chess, written in Turkish and Arabic.