The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]
Page 35
1611–1682/1684)
Evliya Çelebi, also known as Katib Çelebi, was an author who left palace service and made traveling his sole purpose in life after he claimed that he had seen the messenger of Islam, the prophet Muhammad, in a dream calling on him to travel the world. For nearly 40 years he traveled throughout the Ottoman Empire and many other countries of the world. His Seyahatnameh or Book of Travels provides his readers with a wealth of fascinating information on the rich and diverse cultures and traditions of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.
Evliya Çelebi was born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, in March 1611. He was the son of Derviș (Dervish) Mehmed Zilli Ağa, the imperial jeweler and goldsmith at the Ottoman court. His mother was an ethnic Abkhaz who had been brought up as a slave in the palace during the reign of Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617). She had relatives in high places, including powerful and influential statesmen and governors such as Melek Ahmed Pasha, who acted as one of Evliya Çelebi’s patrons. Evliya Çelebi used his relationship with Melek Ahmed Pasha to travel in southeastern Europe and observe the daily life of ordinary folks in various urban centers of the region.
Evliya Çelebi received his education at a religious school in Istanbul. He also received training as a Quran reciter. In 1636, because of his voice and exceptional talent as a Quran reciter, he was brought to the attention of Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623–1640), who recruited him as a member of his inner court. At the palace school (enderun), Evliya studied Arabic, music, and calligraphy. In addition to his formal education, he developed an exceptional talent for storytelling. His writings indicate his genuine devotion to his Islamic faith, as well as his close affinity and deep attachment to Sufism and his fascination with the Halveti, Mevlevi, and Bektași orders.
Initially Evliya Çelebi traveled across the Ottoman Empire by attaching himself to various high government officials. Later he traveled on his own and left Ottoman territory to range farther afield. He visited many countries, including Austria, Russia, Crimea, Iran, Sudan, and Egypt. During his trips Evliya Çelebi recorded his observations on a wide variety of topics, ranging from the natural topography to the state of local administration to the names and achievements of prominent scholars, poets, artists, and architects. He also recorded folktales, religious traditions, and customs, as well as popular songs and legends. His Siyahatname (Book of Travels) is one of the most valuable sources of information for the study of the Ottoman Empire during the 17th century. Evliya Çelebi died in 1682 or 1684, most probably in Egypt.
See also: Popular Culture: Bektași Order; Sultans: Murad IV; Primary Documents: Document 10; Document 20
Further Reading
Evliya Çelebi. The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha, 1588–1662. Translated by Robert Dankoff. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
Evliya Çelebi. Seyahatnameh, Book of Travels. Vol. II, Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis. Edited by Robert Dankoff and Robert Elise. Leiden: Brill, 1990.
Evliya Çelebi. Seyahatnameh, Book of Travels. Vol. V, Evliya Çelebi in Albania and Adjacent Regions (Kosovo, Montenegro, Ohrid). Edited by Robert Dankoff and Robert Elise. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Evliya Effendi. Narratives of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century. 2 vols. Translated by Ritter Joseph Von Hammer. n.p.: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1968.
Fuzuli (1480–1555/1556)
One of the great lyric poets of the 16th century, who composed his poems in Azerbaijani Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. Fuzuli was born either in Karbala (Kerbela) or in Najaf in present-day southern Iraq in 1480. At the time of his birth southern Iraq was ruled by the Turkoman Aq Qoyunlu (Ak Koyunlu) dynasty. Fuzuli’s family traced its roots to the Bayat, a Turkoman tribe that had settled in Iraq sometime before his birth. He studied Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, as well as astronomy and mathematics. Trained as a Shia scholar, he worked at the mosque of Ali in Najaf. Ali was the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and the first Shia imam. When the Safavid monarch Shah Ismail I (r. 1501–1524) seized Baghdad in 1508, Fuzuli praised him as a great monarch. Until 1534 Iraq was ruled by Shia Safavid governors, who provided Fuzuli with financial support and patronage. In December 1534 the Ottoman sultan Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566) captured Baghdad. Fuzuli extolled the Ottoman conqueror and composed poems in praise of his high officials, including the Ottoman grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha. In return for showering the Ottoman sultan and his high officials with laudatory poems, he was promised an allowance, and when he did not receive the promised stipend in time, he wrote a poem complaining about the delay in payment. Fuzuli lived the remainder of his life in Karbala, where he died in the plague epidemic of 1555–1556. Fuzuli wrote 15 books, in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. While his greatest poetical works were in Turkish, he wrote the majority of his Shia religious poetry in Persian.
Statue of the poet Fuzuli in Istanbul, Turkey. (Victor Karasev/Dreamstime.com)
See also: Historians: Bāki; Sultans: Süleyman I
Further Reading
Clot, André. Süleiman the Magnificent. London: Saqi Books, 2005.
Demirel, Hamide. The Poet Fuzuli: His Works, Study of His Turkish, Persian, and Arabic Divans. Ankara: Ministry of Culture, 1991.
Fuzuli. Fuzuli Divani. Baku: Azerbaycan SSR Elmler Akademiyasi, 1958.
Fuzuli. Kerbela Șehіtleri. Istanbul: Huzur Yayinevi, 2010.
Fuzuli. Leylā and Mejnūn. Translated from Turkish by Sofi Huri. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1971.
Gibb, E. J. W. A History of Ottoman Poetry. 6 vols. Edited by Edward G. Browne. London: Luzac and Company, 1965.
Gökalp, Ziya (1876–1924)
One of the most influential Turkish intellectuals of the 20th century, Ziya Gökalp was a Turkish nationalist writer, poet, teacher, and sociologist, who devoted much of his life and writing to the study of the impact of Western civilization on Islam and Turkish national identity. He was born Mehmed Ziya on March 23, 1876, in Diyarbakir in southeastern Anatolia (present-day southeastern Turkey) into a mixed Turkish and Kurdish family. He attended the military junior high school and after 1890 the state senior high school. His father exposed him to a mixture of modern Western ideas and traditional Islamic values. His uncle taught him Arabic; Persian; and the works of great Muslim philosophers, including Ghazali, Ibn Sina, and Farabi. He also became acquainted with the works and ideas of great Muslim mystics such as Mowlana Jalal al-Din Mohammad Balkhi (Rumi). Through Abdullah Cevdet (Jevdet), Gökalp became acquainted with philosophical materialism.
In 1896 Ziya arrived in Istanbul, where he studied at the veterinary college. As a student in Istanbul he joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), but he was arrested and sent back to Diyarbakir in 1898. In 1908 Gökalp established a branch of the CUP in Diyarbakir. When the CUP seized power in 1908, Gökalp emerged as one of its ideological leaders. In 1909 he moved to Salonika (Thessaloniki) in present-day northern Greece, where he taught sociology until 1912. He returned to Istanbul and was elected to parliament in 1912. He also began to teach sociology at the Darülfünun (university) and wrote for several intellectual journals, including Genç Kalemler, Yeni Felsefe Mecmuasi, and Türk Yurdu. In 1919 Gökalp was exiled to Malta by the British, who had occupied Istanbul. He returned to Istanbul in 1921. On October 29, 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its first president. In 1923 Gökalp was elected to the Turkish parliament as a representative from Diyarbakir. Gökalp died on October 25, 1924, in Istanbul.
The majority of Gökalp’s works were written between 1911 and 1918 and 1922 and 1924. His writings were greatly influenced by the historical conditions of the late Ottoman period and the early stages of the nationalist movement. He witnessed the decline and the disintegration of the empire and the rise of a secular nationalist republic under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Gökalp was an ardent Turkish nationalist and a stanch modernizer. For him, Turkish nationalism was not merely an ideology, but also a philosophy of life a
nd the foundation for the unity and solidarity of the Turkish people. Fully aware of the importance and influence of Islam for Turkish culture, Gökalp sought to synthesize Turkish nationalism with modernity and Islam. He believed that a mystical Islam devoid of Islamic political ideals and institutions could provide Muslim Turks with a strong moral and ethical compass. Distinguishing culture from civilization, Gökalp asserted that culture incorporated the national characteristics of a nation, whereas civilization belonged to humanity and was therefore an international phenomenon. He advocated the idea of Turks abandoning Eastern civilization and adopting Western civilization while preserving their Turkish national identity and culture. One of his most famous statements, “I am from a Turkish nation, I am from the Islamic community, and I am from Western civilization,” describes the underlying foundation of his philosophy. Gökalp believed in secularism, democracy, Westernism, women’s emancipation, and political as well as economic independence, the very principles adopted as the ideological foundation for the reforms implemented by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
See also: Empire and Administration: Atatürk, Kemal; Rebels: Young Turks; Primary Documents: Document 18
Further Reading
Bulut, Yücel. “Gökalp, Ziya.” In Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Masters, 232–233. New York: Facts On File, 2009.
Heyd, Uriel. Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gokalp. London: The Harvill Press, 1950.
Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Mango, Andrew. Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey. New York: Overlook Press, 1999.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Ibrahim Peçevi (Ibrahim Pechevi)
(1572/1574–1650)
A prominent Ottoman Bosnian author, historian, and chronicler, Ibrahim Peçevi was born in 1572 or 1574 and was raised in Peç in present-day southern Hungary (hence his name, Peçevi, “from Peç”). His family had Bosnian roots. Peçevi is best known for his two-volume history, Tarih-i Peçevi or Peçevi’s History. Until 1641 Peçevi worked as a government official. After he left government service, Peçevi devoted his life to writing the history of the Ottoman Empire. His book is used for the study of the period from 1520 to 1640.
The first part of Peçevi’s history, which focuses on the period between 1520 and 1566, is based on works written by earlier historians. In the second part, however, Peçevi relies on his personal observations, as well as the material he collected from eyewitnesses. One of the main strengths of Peçevi’s historical account is his inclusion of issues relating to daily life in the Ottoman Empire. For example, he wrote about how coffee was first introduced in Istanbul and how its introduction caused heated controversy and violent conflict between the conservative ulema and those subjects of the sultan who either profited from the sale and distribution of such goods or simply enjoyed consuming them. Peçevi, who stood with the conservatives in opposition to coffee, and later tobacco, wrote:
Until the year 962 (1555), in the high, God-guarded city of Constantinople, as well as in the Ottoman lands generally, coffee and coffeehouses did not exist. About that year, a fellow called Hakam from Aleppo, and a wag called Shems from Damascus, came to the city: they each opened a large shop in the district called Tahtalkale, and began to purvey coffee. These shops became meeting-places of a circle of pleasure-seekers and idlers, and also of some wits from among the men of letters and literati, and they used to meet in groups of about twenty or thirty. Some read books and fine writings, some were busy with backgammon and chess, some brought new poems and talked of literature. Those who used to spend a good deal of money on giving dinners for the sake of convivial entertainment, found that they could attain the joys of conviviality merely by spending an asper or two on the price of coffee. It reached such a point that all kinds of unemployed officers, judges and professors all seeking preferment, and corner-sitters with nothing to do proclaimed that there was no place like it for pleasure and relaxation, and filled it until there was no room to sit or stand. It became so famous that, besides the holders of high offices, even great men could not refrain from coming there. The Imams and muezzins and pious hypocrites said: ‘People have become addicts of the coffeehouse; nobody comes to the mosques!’ The ulema said: ‘It is a house of evil deeds; it is better to go to the wine-tavern than there.’ The preachers in particular made great efforts to forbid it. The muftis, arguing that anything which is heated to the point of carbonization, that is, becomes charcoal, is unlawful, issued fetvas against it. In the time of Sultan Murad III, may God pardon him and have mercy on him, there were great interdictions and prohibitions, but certain persons made approaches to the chief of police and the captain of the watch about selling coffee from back-doors in side-alleys, in small and unobtrusive shops, and were allowed to do this…. After this time, it became so prevalent, that the ban was abandoned. The preachers and muftis now said that it does not get completely carbonized, and to drink it is therefore lawful. Among the ulema, the sheikhs, the viziers and the great, there was nobody left who did not drink it. It even reached such a point that the grand viziers built great coffeehouses as investments, and began to rent them out at one or two gold pieces a day. (Quoted in Lewis: 132–133)
This illuminating report from Peçevi demonstrates that from the very beginning the introduction of coffee and coffeehouses ignited controversy and stirred heated and bitter public debate. Many among the conservative ulema condemned the new beverage as an intoxicant similar to wine, which the holy book of Islam, the Quran, had forbidden. The palace and the ulema used coffee as the scapegoat for the decline in public morality and the rise in rebellious behavior. The advocates and supporters of the black drink, however, struck back, and used their own interpretation of the Quran and Islamic law to dismiss the comparison with wine, emphasizing the benefits of drinking coffee and arguing that, as long as it did not interfere with the daily religious obligation, there could not be anything wrong with enjoying several cups of the black beverage.
See also: Popular Culture: Food and Dining; Sultans: Bayezid II; Mehmed II; Selim I; Süleyman I
Further Reading
Grehan, James. “Smoking and ‘Early Modern” Sociability: The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries).” American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (December 2006): 1352–1377.
Lewis, Bernard. Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Ibrahim Şinasi (Ibrahim Shinasi)
(1826/1827–1871)
Ottoman journalist, author, and critic, Ibrahim Şinasi is considered one of the founders of modern Turkish language and literature. Şinasi was born in Istanbul in 1826/1827. His father, an army captain and an artillery officer, was killed by the Russians while defending Shumla in present-day northeastern Bulgaria in 1828. At the time of his father’s death Şinasi was only a year old (Gibb: 5:22). The orphaned child was brought up by his mother’s relatives. After completing his primary education, Şinasi entered the office of the Imperial Arsenal (Gibb: 5:22). He studied Arabic and Persian and began to take lessons in French from a European army officer. After appealing to the commander of the arsenal, a certain Fethi Pasha, and with support from the Ottoman monarch, Abdülmecid (Abdülmejid) (r. 1839–1861), Şinasi was sent to Paris to complete his studies. While in Paris he received a monthly allowance of 750 francs from the Ottoman government (Gibb: 5:23). Şinasi studied in Paris from 1849 to 1854. In Paris he met some
of the most influential French writers, poets, and intellectuals of the 19th century, including the philosopher, historian, and scholar of religion Ernest Renan and the poet and statesman Lamartine (Gibb: 5:24). In 1853 Şinasi published a collection of his poems under the title Divan-i Şinasi (The collected poems of Şinasi).
Upon his return to Istanbul in 1854 Şinasi was appointed by the grand vizier, Mustafa Reşid (Reshid) Pasha, to a post in the Ministry of Public Instruction. He also was invited to join the prestigious Council of Education (Meclis-i Maārif; Mejlis-i Maārif), which had been created by Sultan Abdülmecid (Abdülmejid). When Mustafa Reşid Pasha was dismissed from his post, Şinasi was dismissed from his own governmental post, and he lost his seat on the Council of Education. When Mustafa Reşid Pasha was reinstated as the grand vizier, however, Şinasi regained his post in the government. After Mustafa Reşid Pasha died in 1858, Yusuf Kāmil Pasha emerged as Şinasi’s patron and protector. In 1859 Şinasi’s translations of the works of La Fontaine, Lamartine, and Racine were published. In the same year he completed his comedy, Șāir Evlenmesi (Marriage of a poet).
In 1860, together with Agāh Effendi, Şinasi published the newspaper Tercüman-i Ahval (Terjüman-i Ahval) (The Interpreter of Events). After six months Şinasi left Tercüman-i Ahval and started a new newspaper, called Tasvir-i Efkar (Representation of Opinions). The publication of Tasvir-i Efkar marks the beginning of a new era in the development of Ottoman Turkish. Şinasi viewed prose and poetry not as pastimes for the delight and enjoyment of members of the Ottoman ruling elite, but as indispensable tools to be used in educating the masses and transforming the moral, educational, and intellectual state of the society. To establish a direct link to ordinary folk, Şinasi used a simplified and accessible Turkish devoid of Arabic and Persian loan words and grammatical constructs, which could be easily understood by everyone. The success and popularity of Tasvir-i Efkar convinced the Ottoman statesman Fuad Pasha to seek Şinasi’s support and involvement in publication of the Military Gazette (Ceride-yi Askeriyye; Jeride-yi Askeriyye).