In a peripatetic life that included forty years of sustained travel, Evliya Çelebi spent twelve years in the service of Melek Ahmed Pasha, governor of a number of Ottoman provinces and grand vizier between 1650–1651. Evliya traveled with his patron—a relative on his mother’s side—to postings in Ochakiv (Özü), Silistre, Van, Bitlis, and Sofia, remaining with him until the pasha’s death in 1662. Due to the circumstances described below, however, Evliya was away from his patron during the 1659 trip from Bursa to Edirne, traveling in the retinue of grand vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. Evliya was deeply attached to his kinsman Melek Ahmed, and to his wife Qaya Sultan, a daughter of Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623–1640), who died in early 1659, a few months before Evliya’s journey. Twenty days after Melek Ahmed Pasha’s wife Qaya Sultan died, he was summoned before the young Sultan Mehmed IV along with the grand vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. The sultan granted Melek Ahmed the governorship of Bosnia province and additional monetary allowances in what seems to have been an act of consolation; Evliya describes Köprülü’s astonishment at the sultan’s generosity toward Melek Ahmed. After leaving the sultan’s audi- ence, the two men quarreled over Köprülü’s recommendation that Melek Ahmed appoint one of Köprülü’s own protégés as an administrator in his newly acquired post. When Melek Ahmed Pasha set out toward Bosnia from Istanbul on 15 March 1659, Evliya was in his retinue. The pasha’s cortege quartered for a week on the Topcılar Plain to the northwest of the city as they acquired the necessary provisions for the journey. From that encampment Evliya was dispatched several times to the grand vizier to take care of small errands, during which time Köprülü seems to have taken a liking to him. Days later, when Melek Ahmed’s cortege reached its second station, a few of the pasha’s aghas openly confronted Evliya, obviously annoyed by his being treated as a special assistant (qapucular kethudası) to Melek Ahmed. Although, according to Evliya, he assured them that he had no interest in such a position, the confrontation quickly turned into a fight, in which Melek Ahmed’s treasurer and Evliya were injured. While Evliya was recuperating at Melek Ahmed’s tent, a letter arrived from grand vizier Köprülü suggesting that the pasha send Evliya to him. As the pasha was about to continue on to Bosnia and Evliya was in no position 2 the trip from bursa to edi̇rne to join him, he agreed to leave him with the grand vizier. Köprülü granted Evliya a handsome salary and recruited him temporarily into his household, although Evliya had to be kept in confinement for twenty days before his case with the treasurer was closed. He stayed in Istanbul for another month and then joined the retinue of the grand vizier and Sultan Mehmed IV, traveling from Istanbul to Bursa, then from Bursa to Edirne during the next few months (V: 78b–80a).1 Sultan Mehmed IV set out from Istanbul with a sizable army in May 1659, on an Anatolian campaign to crush the Jelali rebellions led by Abaza Hasan Pasha.2 The army camped in Üsküdar for twenty days, during which time hundreds of people who had been arrested in various parts of Anatolia were executed with allegations that they were Jelali rebels. The army marched in the direction of İzmid, where the Sultan decided not to proceed further in person. Instead, İsmail Pasha was appointed to handle the campaign. He departed with an army of ten thousand soldiers in the direction of Aleppo, where Abaza Hasan was known to be stationed. Bursa was fixed upon as the Sultan’s new destination.3 Although the grand admiral Köse Ali Pasha followed the sultan’s cortege with the imperial galea bastarda, Mehmed decided to proceed by land. Evliya traveled with the imperial cortege until İznik, where he obtained permission from the stew- ard of the grand vizier to make several excursions before he joined them in Bursa. The sultan, with Köprülü Mehmed Pasha at his side, entered Bursa with an enormous procession. Evliya never mentions the imperial mother Hadice Turhan Sultan during this trip, although other sources suggest that she was also traveling alongside her son.4 The stay in Bursa lasted more than seventy days, after which petitions arrived from Sührab Mehmed Pasha, the commander of Bozcaada, communicating that the Venetians were prepar- ing to capture the island. After consultations with the imperial council, the sultan decided to head for the Dardanelles. The struggle for domination of the North Aegean between the Ottomans and the Venetians continued for a quarter of a century. Bozcaada and Lim- nos were captured by the Venetians in 1656 and taken back by the Ottomans only a year later, i.e., two years before Evliya’s visit described in the pas- sages edited here. While the castles built during the time of Mehmed II
1 The section paraphrased above is also available in English translation in Robert Dank- off, The Intimate life of an Ottoman statesman, 237f. 2 Abdurrahman Abdi Paşa, Vekayiname, 140; Silāḥdār ta’rīḫi, vol. 1, 164. 3 According to Silāḥdār ta’rīḫi however the destination was set from the start on. 4 Lucienne Thys-Şenocak, Ottoman Women Builders, 111.