AN OTTOMAN TRAVELLER SELECTIONS FROM THE Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY BY Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim First published by Eland Publishing Limited 61 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QL in 2010 and in paperback in 2011 This ebook edition first published in 2011 All rights reserved Translation and Commentary copyright © Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim except where credited in the text, acknowledgements and bibliography The right of Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly ISBN 978–1–78060–025–3 Cover Image: ‘Iskandar lies dying’ from the Tarjumah-i Shâhnâmah © Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Contents ILLUSTRATIONS ix INTRODUCTION x VOLUME ONE Istanbul 1 1. Introduction: The dream 3 2. The Süleymaniye Mosque 8 3. The antiquity of smoking 16 4. Galata 17 5. Kağıthane 21 6. Guilds’ parade 24 7. Lağari Hasan Çelebi 30 VOLUME TWO Anatolia and beyond 31 1. Setting out 33 2. Hot Springs of Bursa 36 3. Return to Istanbul 41 4. Hamsi in Trabzon 44 5. Black Sea adventure 47 6. Tabriz 55 7. Cat-brokers of Ardabil 66 8. Oil wells of Baku 67 9. Cathedral of Echmiadzin 68 v Contents 10. Ankara 70 VOLUME THREE In the Retinue of Melek Ahmed Pasha 86 1. Nasreddin Hoca in Akşehir33 89 2. Safed 91 3. Sheikh Bekkar the Naked on the road outside Damascus 94 4. The girl who gave birth to an elephant 97 5. Armenian 99 6. The cats of Divriği 101 7. Witchcraft in a Bulgarian village 103 8. Sofia 105 VOLUME FOUR Safavid Borderlands 113 1. Diyarbekir 115 2. Bitlis 118 3. The ruined city of Ahlat 134 4. On ‘extinguishing the candle’ 136 VOLUME FIVE East Anatolia and the Balkans 139 1. Highwaymen in the Bolu Pass; return to Van 141 2. Escape from Bitlis 143 3. Diplomacy in Split (Spalato) 161 4. The bandit Yano 167 VOLUME SIX Hungary and the German Campaign 169 1. An incident on the battlefield 171 2. Shkodër (Scutari) 173 3. The Samakov iron works 179 4. An adventure near Komorn; Tatar raid into Western Europe 180 5. Dubrovnik (Ragusa) 199 6. The great bridge at Mostar 207 VOLUME SEVEN Habsburg Borderlands, Crimea and beyond 211 1. Raiding expeditions in ‘Germany’; a fabulous tree in Krokondar 213 vi Contents 2. The battle on the Raab River (Battle of Saint Gotthard, 1664) 216 3. Comparison of Austrians and Hungarians 224 4. A pleasure resort near Vienna; the free conduct of women 225 5. Vienna 226 6. Crimea 241 7. A meal of strange honey in Circassia 245 8. Kalmyks and cannibalism 247 VOLUME EIGHT Greece and the conquest of Crete 249 1. Return to Crimea 251 2. Report to the Sultan in Edirne 265 3. The Gypsies of Gümülcine (Komotini) 267 4. Athens 270 5. Balibadra: A great cypress tree and the five ethnic groups of the Morea283 6. Siege of Candia: Ministrations to the wounded and Saint Green-Arm 285 7. A captive woman in Kolorya 288 8. Fair at Doyran 289 VOLUME NINE Pilgrimage 291 1. Setting out on the Hajj 293 2. Brigands at the Alman Pass; Ephesus 296 3. Safed and the land of Canaan 302 4. Jerusalem 306 5. Sheikh Bekkar the Naked in Damascus 325 6. The Hajj caravan; Muzayrib, the Hajj bazaar 327 7. Medina 332 8. The People of Mecca 344 9. Uyun al-qasab 347 10. St Catherine’s Monastery on Mt Sinai 350 VOLUME TEN Egypt and Sudan 353 1. Adam’s prayer for Egypt in ‘Hebrew’ 355 vii Contents 2. Relation among Nile overflow, plenty and poverty, crowdedness of Cairo, people and donkeys 357 3. Snake medicine and snake charming 359 4. Rain, snow and hail in Egypt in 1083 (1672) 370 5. Crocodiles 371 6. The Cairo underworld and unusual trades 376 7. Trades and products lacking in Egypt 381 8. Chicken incubation; Sabil Allam stones 383 9. Exploring a pyramid 386 10. Weddings, circumcision, etc. 390 11. Mevlud of Seyyid Ahmad al-Badawi in Tanta 397 12. Mountain of the Birds 416 13. Map of the Nile 419 14. Meeting with Kör Husayn Qan 420 15. Meeting with Qan Girgis; encounter with two Bektashi dervishes 423 16. Elephants and monkeys 429 17. Envoi 432 APPENDIX Outline of Journeys and Events in the Ten Volumes of the Book of Travels 433 BIBLIOGRAPHY 451 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 456 INDEX 457 viii ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrations in the text Süleymaniye Mosque by Melchior Lorck 1 (Royal Library, Copenhagen) Entertainers at the circumcision of the sultan’s sons 33 (Topkapı Palace Museum) A wandering dervish 89 (National Library of Sweden) Diyarbekir by Matrakçı Nasuh 111 (Istanbul University Rare Works Library) Map of Split (Spalato) 139 (Newberry Library, Chicago, 171.5 M858 12(a)1) Bridge at Mostar 171 (Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library) The Tatar Khan 217 (National Library of Sweden) The Parthenon, Athens by Christian Hansen 257 (akg-images) The Great Mosque, Medina 301 (The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Art Library) An Ethiopian Woman 369 (The David Museum, Copenhagen) ix INTRODUCTION The Book of Travels (Seyahatname) of Evliya Çelebi occupies a unique place in the literature of travel. It is probably the longest and most ambitious travel ac- count by any writer in any language, and a key text for all aspects of the Ottoman Empire at the time of its greatest extension in the seventeenth century. It is al- so the product of an unusual personality – a cultured Ottoman gentleman, pious yet unconventional, observant and inquisitive, curious about everything, obses- sive about travelling, determined to leave a complete record of his travels. Who was Evliya Çelebi?1 Born in Istanbul in 1611, during the reign of Sultan Ahmed, he was the scion of an established Turkish family with ties to the court. His father was chief goldsmith to the sultan. As a young boy he had a medrese education. In 1623, the year in which Sultan Murad IV assumed the throne, he was apprenticed to the sultan’s imam, Evliya Mehmed Efendi, who tutored him in Koran recitation. ‘I became his pupil,’ he writes, ‘and he made me his spiritual son.’ Perhaps he owed his name to his teacher and spiritual father.2 He goes on: 1 Practically everything that we know about Evliya must be derived from the Book of Travels, since no other Ottoman source has yet turned up that mentions him. Only a list of the retinue in Kara Mehmed Pasha’s 1665 embassy, discovered in the Vienna court archive, includes an ‘Evlia Efen- di’, which must be Evliya Çelebi (published in Teply 1975; also in Kreutel 1957 2nd ed. 1987, 17). Recently Pinelopi Stathi turned up the draft of a Greek patriarchal letter, of uncertain date, recommending Evliya as ‘a man of honour, and peace. He has the desire and the inclination to be a traveller of the world, and describe places, cities and nations of men, having no harm in his heart to make injustice or hurt anyone’ (Stathi 2005/ 2006, 267; and see MacKay 2007). This is similar to the ‘patents’ or safe-conducts that Evliya mentions several times (e.g., see Volume 7, selection 6; Volume 9, selection 10). Also, five actual graffiti have been preserved. Four of these have been known for a long time; see Prokosch 1988–89 for photographs, hand-drawn copies, transcriptions and translations. A fifth has been reported by Mehmet Tütüncü. See Dankoff 2004, 149–50 for comparison with the thirty or so graffiti that Evliya records in the Book of Travels. In addition, a map of the Nile in the Vatican library can be attributed to Evliya; it was made known in Rossi 1949; an edition is being prepared by Nuran Tezcan and Robert Dankoff. 2 Evliya, which designates the ‘friends’ (Arabic: awliya) of God who, according to Koran 10:62, ‘have nothing to fear or to regret.’ Evliya is also the term for saintly individuals whose tombs are the objects of pilgrimage and visitation (ziyaret). The usual translation in this anthology is ‘saints’. x INTRODUCTION From Evliya Efendi I mastered the science of reciting the Koran from mem- ory, and I could recite the entire Koran in eight hours, without addition or subtraction, and without error whether open or hidden … And every Friday eve (Thursday night) I was appointed to complete a Koran-recital. God be praised, from childhood until the present, whether at home or during my travels, I have not abandoned this practice.3 Soon he was performing Koran recitations in public, including in Aya Sofya – the great Byzantine church of Hagia Sofia that served, since the Ottoman con- quest in 1453, as the chief imperial mosque. It was on one such occasion, in 1636, that he attracted the attention of Sultan Murad IV himself, who drew him into the palace. The sultan was so taken with the young man’s skills – which included singing and witty conversation as well as Koran recitation – that he made him a royal entertainer and boon companion.