A KARAITE ITINERARY THROUGH TURKEY IN 1641-2 BERNARD LEWIS In July 1641 the Karaite ^ Samu­ Crimea, on a jjilgrimage to Jerusalem. el ben David Yemşcl, with three He sailed first to Istanbul thence via friends, set out from Koz lev ^ in the Rhodes to Alexandria, from which he travelled overland through Cairo to * Hebrew Kaia'i, plural Kara'im. I he name Jerusalem. After visiting the Holy of a Jewish set laht first appeared in Iraq and Places, he travelled northwards through Pei-sia in the gth cemury. Their original difTerciKc from the orthodox or Rabbanite Jews was their Nabulus, Daiirascus, Horns, Hama rejection of the Talmud, the Rabbinic tradition, and Aleppo to Antioch, and thence and the authority of the Rabbis. Tliey accepted across Anatolia to Istanbul, from the Bible as the sole repository of law and faith, and which he took ship for home. His original maintained tlie right of every believer to interpret intention had been to travel to Sinopc, it in the light of his own knowledge and unders­ and sail from there, but for reasons which tanding. The name is derived from the root Kara', which is common to both Hebiew and Arabic, appear below he changed his plans and with the double meaning of read and call. The proceeded via Istanbul. He remained significance of the name is not known with any in the Crimea until his death in 1674, certainty, though various suggestions have been and was buried in the Kar ai t c cemclry offered. Some authorities consider the word to at Çifut Kale. * mean summoner or missionary, corresponding to Arabic dd'L Others connect it with the Arabic The travels of Yenisei, like most KarrS -scripture-reader. The likeliest explanation Karaite literary works, arc written in is that connecting the name with the specific sense Hebrew. They first came light in 1690, of scripture study, common to both Hebrew and Arabic Kara'{c[. Hebrew Miha, the Bible, when King Charles XI of Sweden be­ Arabic Kıır'âıı). came inrcrested in the Karaites and sent In the Middle Ages the sect had a conside­ Gustav Pcringer - LiUicblad, Pro­ rable following among the Jews of the Middle fessor of Oriental languages in the Uni­ East, Africa and Spain, but from Crusading versity of Upsala, on a journey to times onwards it dwindled rapidly, and today study the Karaites of that country. On survives only in very small numbers. There are communities in Cairo and Istanbul, but now­ ^ This is the usual transcription of (he Heb­ here else in the Middle East, except for a small rew Y'MŞL. This is probably not a family name, number among the immigrants settling in Israel. but the initials of the Hebrew verse Tamiali'cd At the end of the 12th century Karaite immigrants mishkabö sâlöın 'He will rest peacefully upon couch' settled in the Crimea, and a century or so later Gurland,p.III). I'hc use ofsuch names composed established colonies in Poland and Lithuania, from initials was xcry common among Jews, From that time onwards the main centre of the ^ Kozlov or Gezlev, known in Russian Karaites was in Eastenrn Europe, where they as Eupatoria, was the main centre of the C rimea n spoke Turkish dialects. There is an extensive Karaites, and the residence of their spiritual chief modern scientific literature on the Karaites. Brief (Hâhâm). accounts and bibliographies will be found in the •' Carmoly ( p. joa 1 mistakenly asserts relevant articles in the Jewish Encyclopacdia, New that he was killed in the C'.hmelnitzky rising York, 1901-6, and the Encyclopaedia Jitdaica, Berlin, of 1648. In fact his tombstone was still to 1928-34 (not completed). A selection of Karaite be seen in Çifut Kale in the Clrimca in the literature in English translation will be found in igth century. The text of ihc inscrip­ Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, New Haven, tion, inchiding some verses in Hebrew, 1952- was published by Gurland (IV-V), 3i6 BERNARD LEWlS his return to Sweden he published, among the writing of the manuscript is far from other things, a fragment of Yemşel's travels, clear, and that the reading \vhich he gives with a Latin translation (Upsala 1691), ^ for many names is conjectural. As well This fragment, consisting of about the first as my own readings, I have given an fifth of the work, was several times rep­ exact transliteration of the Hebrew spelling rinted, and in 1847 was published in a as given in the edition. It should be re­ French translation by E. Carmoly.^ So­ membered that the Hebrew alphabet me time later a unique manuscript of the has 22 letters, all of which are consonants complete itinerary was found in the Fir- though the juatres lectioniss, y, and w, as i n kowitz collection in St. Pctersburgh, Arabic, may sometimes be used as vowcLs and published by Jonas Gurland The following pairs of letters are inter­ in 1866, together with two other Hebrew changeable, being distinquished from one Karaite itineraries from Crimea, of 1654- another only by a single point, which is 5 and of 1785-6, contained in the same not normally written: BV, KH, PF, Tl\ manuscript.' All theree were reprinted by In addition, the folloving pairs arc of J. D. Eisensteinin 1926*. An abridged somewhat similiar shape, and may someti­ English translation of the first half of mes be confused when dealing with un- Yemşel's itinerary, as far as Cairo, fomiliar names: BK, GiN, DR, MS, YW. was inscluded by E. N. Adier in his The letter çdoes not exist in Hebrew, and Jewish Travellers (London 1930), is usually represented by ş. The following two ''xtracts contain Yemşel's itinerary is written with­ the first and last scctioj f the itinerary, out literary pretentions, and coniains and between them con^ ise about a qu­ no more than a bare account of what he arter of the total text. I'he first, dealing saw and did. Excetpt for some confusion with Yemşel's journey up to his arrival as to his route from Istanbul to Rhodes in Rhodes, was translated by both Car- he is generaly fairly accurate. His descripti­ moly and Adler. The second, covering ons arc brief and factual, and are probably the journey from Antioch across Anatolia reliable - except perhaps for the numbers to Istanbul and then back to the Cri­ he giwes for people, moscjues and shops, mea, is here translated, as far as I know, whic show a suspicious sameness from for the first time. place to place. His Hebrew style is plain The main dilTicuity of the itinerary and monotonous, not free from grammati­ through Turkey is of course the identi­ cal errors. Here and there he uses a fication of place-names in the Hebrew Turkish word. These I have given in transcription - a task not made any easier both transcription and transliteration. by the corruptions and errors introduced My soul yearned and longed for the by copyists and editors ignorant of Turkish courts of God, to ascend the mountains topography.^ Gurland remarks that of myrrh and the hill of frankincense to give thanks and to prostrate myself ' On this mission see fiunher H. Graelz, before the Lord God of Hosts in the bosom Gescliiclile der Jtiden, X, Leipzig, 18Ö2, n.5. "Die Könige von Schvedcn und die Kmâer", PF.311 ff. ° E. Carmoly, Ilineiaire de la Tene Sainle, traveller John Sanderson, whose travels of the Brussels 1847. years 1584-1602, were published in London 'Jonas Gtifland, Mue Dcii/cinaler der by Sir William Foster in 1931, to tlie judisclm Likraliir in Si. Petersburg, I, Lyck, 1865. two i6th century Arab travellers Ghazzi and ' J. D. Eisenstein, A Compendium of Je- Makki, examined by Ekrem Kâmil in Tarili ifisli Travels, New York, 1926. Semineri Dergisi, 1/2, 1937, pp. 3-90; and to » In attempting to folUow Yemşel's itine­ Professor A. Suheyl Ünver's study on the rary, I have relied in the main on the standard compaigns of Murad IV in Belleten, VXI, no 64, work of F. Taeschner, Das Analolisclte Wegenetz 1952, pp. 547-576. nach osmanischen Qiiellen, 2 vols, Leipzig, 1924- 10 Myrrh {Mor) and frankincense {Leböna) 6. Among itineraries that have subsequently are a pun on the Hebrew names of Mori ah (near come to light, reference may made to the English Jerusalem) and Lebanon. A KARAITE ITINERARY THROUGH TURKEY 317 of Jerusalem, may she speedily be rebu­ Mush ar rem Rcis " with our dear ilt in our days, and to fulfil my \-o\vs to friends, and waited two days on the ship. God. Then I heard that the honorable On the first intermediate day of the R. Isaac and the honorable R. Feast of Tabernacles we left Cons­ Solomon Levi were preparing themsol- tantinople with joy and good cheer vels to travel to the Holy Land, and for the ships bound for Alexandria when I heard this God awoke my spirit, about fifty large ships, I mean elli geinilcri^^ • saying: "Rise up and go thou loo!". And On the ship where we were, there were I could not hold myself back, nor was about a hundred Rabbani te 2° men and my heart content to sit in the shop and women, also intending to go to Jerusalem buy and sell, for a fire burned within me. and some of them to Safcd, and aboud At once therefore I sent a letter to R. five hundred Muslims. We sailed until Solomon Levi, to the town of Ivozlcv, evening, when wc came to the town of and we went on board ship on Thursday Gallipoli, where we stayed one day.