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, Ottoman historian and poet (1031?-1071/1620?-1661). He was born in Bag̲h̲če Sarāy [ q.v.], capital of the k̲h̲ānate of the Crimea, the son of a certain ʿAbd Allāh ʿĀrif al-Rūmī. According to Ottoman sources, his given name was Ḥasan (though Ḥüseyin sometimes occurs in later European works). His date of birth is calculated as around 1031/1620, based on a statement in his poetic dīwān that he was entering his fortieth year in 1070/1659. In 1624-5 his family moved to Istanbul, where he received a good secretarial and literary education. Taken into the household of the ḳapudan-i deryā [ q.v.] …

, Ṭurk̲h̲ān K̲h̲ādid̲j̲e Sulṭān ( ca. 1626-83), mother of the Ottoman sultan Meḥemmed IV [ q.v.]. Ṭurk̲h̲ān Sulṭān entered the Ottoman imperial harem as a slave of the wālide sulṭān Kösem Sulṭān [ q.v.], mother of Murād IV (1623-40) and Ibrāhīm (1640-8) [ q.vv.]. Nothing is known of her background, except that she had a brother, Yūsuf Ag̲h̲a, who died in Istanbul in 1100/1689. She gave birth to sultan Ibrāhīm’s eldest son Meḥemmed in 1641; there may also have been a daughter, Fāṭima Sulṭān, 1642-57. On Ibrāhīm’s deposition in 1648 and he…

(1861-1925), Ottoman biographer and bibliographer. Meḥmed Ṭāhir was born in Bursa in northwestern Turkey on 22 November 1861, the son of Rifʿat Bey, clerk to the city council, and grandson of Üsküdarli̊ Seyyid Meḥmed Ṭāhir Pas̲h̲a, formerly a commander in sultan ʿAbd ül-Med̲j̲īd’s imperial guard. He studied at the Bursa military academy from 1875 and at the élite Ḥarbiy̲y̲e̲ (War) academy in Istanbul from 1880. Graduating in 1883 he spent the next twenty years teaching geography…

(d. probably after 998/1590), Ottoman historian. Practically nothing is known about Seyfī aside from the fact that he compiled a unique historiogeographical work on the rulers of Asia and China contemporary with Murād III, and the possibility that he may have been a defterdār in the Ottoman bureaucracy. Neither he nor his work is mentioned in the standard Ottoman bio-bibliographical sources. Seyfī’s history has been published by J. Matuz, L’ouvrage de Seyfī Čelebī : historien ottoman du XVI e siècle; édition critique, traduction et commentaires, Paris 1966. Its title, added pos…

, the eleventh Ottoman sultan (r. 974-82/1566-74), the third son and the fourth of the six children of Ḳānūnī Süleymān I and K̲h̲ürrem Sulṭān [ q.vv.]. He was born in Istanbul on 26 Rad̲j̲ab 930/30 May 1524, during the festivities accompanying the marriage of Süleymān’s Grand Vizier Ibrāhīm Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]. Together with his elder half-brother Muṣṭafa and his elder brother Meḥmed, Selīm was one of the three princes in whose honour was held the sünnet dügünü (circumcision feast) of 1530, one of the major dynastic spectacles of Süleymān’s reign. He r…

, 9th/15th-century Ottoman historian. What little is known about Ṭūrsūn Beg derives mainly from incidental references in his History . He was born probably in Bursa in the mid-1420s, to an already prominent ümerāʾ family. His uncle D̲j̲übbe ʿAlī had served as governor in Bursa, and his grandfather Fīrūz Beg in Iznik. Ṭūrsūn Beg was, while relatively young, the holder of a tīmār [ q.v.], probably inherited from his father Ḥamza Beg (cf. Tursun Bey, Târîh-i Ebü’l-feth , ed. M. Tulum, Istanbul 1977, pp. xi-xii; H. İnalcik and R. Murphey, The history of Mehmed the Conqueror by Tursun Beg …

, (1068-1139/1658-1726-7), Ottoman historian. The palace official Silāḥdār Meḥmed Ag̲h̲a was born on 12 Rabīʿ I 1068/8 December 1658 in the Fi̊ndi̊ḳli̊ district of Istanbul. A protégé of the bas̲h̲ muṣāḥib S̲h̲āhīn Ag̲h̲a, he was educated in the sarāy and entered the palace bostānd̲j̲i̊ [ q.v.] corps in 1084/1674. In 1089/1678 he became a zülflü baltad̲j̲i̊ [ q.v.] and in 1090/1679, was promoted to the seferli odasi̊ . In this capacity he took part in the 1683 Vienna campaign led by Ḳara Muṣṭafā Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]. In 1099/1688 he entered the k̲h̲āṣṣ oda [ q.v.] and was promoted successively to d…

(a.) “date, dating, chronology, era”, then also “annals, history”. ¶ I. Dates and Eras in the Islamic World 1. In the sense of “date, dating”, etc. i. Etymology . The non-Arabic origin of this word was recognised by the mediaeval philologists, but the often-cited derivation of the participle muʾarrak̲h̲ “dated”, from a supposed Persian compound māh-rōz “month-day”, is naturally fanciful. In fact, it clearly belongs to the common Semitic root for “moon” and “month”; cf. Akkadian ( w) arḫu , Sabaic wrḫ , Ethiopic wärḫ , Mehri wark̲h̲ , or, with the usual Northwe…

(p.-Tkish.), the Ottoman term for the keeper of a daybook ( rūznāme or rūznāmče ), referring principally to the official in charge of the register of daily income and expenditure of the central treasury, k̲h̲azīne . From the diminutive form rūznāmče, this official was known alternatively as rūznāmčed̲j̲i , a title often contracted to rūznāmče and identical with the name of the daybook itself. The rūznāmed̲j̲i and his scribal staff formed part of the financial bureaucracy headed by the bas̲h̲ defterdār [ q.v.]. The late-15th century ḳānūnnāme of Mehmed II ass…

, meḥmed s̲h̲āh beg (970-1039/1562-1630), Ottoman nis̲h̲ānd̲j̲i̊ and prose stylist. Oḳču-zāde Meḥmed S̲h̲āh (or S̲h̲āhī) Beg was born in 970/1562, the son of a long-serving Ottoman chancery official, later beglerbegi [ q.v.] Oḳču-zāde Meḥmed Pas̲h̲a (d. ca. 995/1587). His own chancery career spanned 44 years. Appointed kātib of the dīwān-i hümāyūn [ q.v.] (988/1580), he held office as reʾīs ül-küttāb (1005/1596), defter emīni (1006/1597), and nis̲h̲ānd̲j̲i̊ [ q.vv.] (1007-10/1599-1601). He then served as defterdār [ q.v.] of Egypt with the rank of sālyāne begi …

, Ibrāhīm (982- ca. 1060/1574-ca. 1649-50), Ottoman historian. Pečewī was born in 982/1574 in Pécs in southwestern Hungary, whence his epithet Pečewī (or, alternatively, Pečuylu, from the Croatian ). His family had a long tradition of Ottoman military service. Both his great-grandfather Ḳara Dāwūd and his grandfather D̲j̲aʿfer Beg served as alay begi in Bosnia; his father (name unknown) took part in campaigns in Bosnia, and in ʿlrāḳ during the 1530s (Pečewī, Taʾrīk̲h̲ , i, 87, 102-6, 436-7, ii, 433). Pečewī’s mother was a member of the Ṣoḳollu [ q.v.] family. At the age of 14, after…

(? - 922/1517), Ottoman Grand Vizier under Selīm I. Sinān al-Dīn Yūsuf Pas̲h̲a was of Christian, probably Bosnian, origin, recruited into Ottoman service through the dews̲h̲irme [ q.v.] system. Promoted from amongst the white eunuchs of the Palace to the rank of vizier, he served as beg of Bosnia, and then in 920/1514, at the beginning of the eastern campaign against S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl, was appointed beglerbegi [ q.v.] of Anatolia. Commanding the right wing of Selīm I’s army at the battle of Čaldiran [ q.v.] (August 1514), he played a decisive role in the Ottoman victory and was im…

(d. before 926/1520), Ottoman historian. Nes̲h̲rī’s one, partially-surviving, historical work, the D̲j̲ihān-nümā , marks a pivotal point in both the development and the study of Ottoman historiography. However, very little is known with certainty about its author, aside from his mak̲h̲laṣ Nes̲h̲rī, which occurs at the end of the history in a ḳaṣīda addressed to the reigning sultan Bāyezīd II [ q.v.]. From scanty and largely unreliable references by later Ottoman writers such as Laṭīfī, ʿĀs̲h̲i̊ḳ Čelebi, ʿĀlī and Kātib Čelebi [ q.vv.], it was long thought that his given name w…

(1065-1128/1655-1716) Ottoman historian. Muṣṭafā Naʿīm, known by the mak̲h̲laṣ Naʿīmā, was born in Aleppo, probably in 1065/1655, the son of a Janissary commander. As a young man he entered, ca. 1100/1688-9, the palace corps of balṭad̲j̲i̊lar [ q.v.] in Istanbul and received a thorough scribal education, developing particular interests in literature, history and astrology. He may also have attended classes at the Beyazīd mosque. Graduating from the balṭad̲j̲i̊ ¶ corps, he was apprenticed to the kātib s of the dīwān-i hümāyūn , and appointed secretary to…

, the title of the late Ottoman official historian. The post of official historian, weḳāyi’-nüwīs , later waḳʿa-nüwīs (“events/event-writer”), in the Ottoman empire dates from the early 18th century. It was a position attached to the Ottoman central administration, which provided for a series of officially-appointed writers to compile a continuous, approved narrative of recent Ottoman history as a formal historical record, to be routinely printed and made available. The post continued in existence for two hundred years, until 1922, virtually the end of the Ottoman empire. The term w…

(d. after 917/1511), Ottoman historian. There is little definite information about this historian apart from his mak̲h̲laṣ Rūḥī. From ʿĀlī’s [ q.v.] reference to him in the Künhü ’l-ak̲h̲bār as Edrenewī Mewlānā Rūḥī, it is probable that he was a member of the ʿulamāʾ and had a family or professional association with Edirne (J. Schmidt, Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī’s Künhü ’l-aḫbār and its preface according to the Leiden manuscript, Istanbul 1987, 58). Any identification with Rūḥī Fāḍi̊l Efendi (d. 927/1528), son of the s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Islām Zenbilli ʿAlī Efendi, remains hypothetical (Babinger, GOW, 4…

, Meḥmed (?-1148/1735), Ottoman historian and poet. He was born in Istanbul, the son of ḳāḍī Muṣṭafā Efendi from Malaṭya. From 1116/1704 he held a regular series of posts as a müderris culminating in appointment to the Süleymāniyye in 1130/1718, the latter held concurrently with the post of Ḥaremeyn müfettis̲h̲i , inspector of the awḳāf of Mecca and Medina. He then served as ḳāḍī of Aleppo 1135-7/1723-4. His career thereafter was irregular by comparison, and much influenced by political considerations, in particular by his closeness to the Grand Vizier News̲h̲ehirli Ibrāhīm Pas̲h̲a [ q.…

, Aḥmed (P-1067/?1657), Ottoman historian. The son of the Ottoman ʿālim ʿAbd ül-Ḥalīm (d. 1051/1641-2), he was born probably in Amasya and himself followed an ʿulemā career, rising to be a middle-ranking müderris in Istanbul. His father being the author of an Ottoman commentary on an Arabic work on jurisprudence, Manār al-anwār , the son became generally known by the laḳab S̲h̲āriḥ ül-Menārzāde. He died in Istanbul in S̲h̲aʿbān 1067/May-June 1657 (HJ. Kissling (éd.), ʿUšâqě-zâde’s Lebensbeschreibungen berühmter Gelehrter und Gottesmänner des Osmanischen Reiches im 17. Jahrhunder…

, the name of a family of Ottoman Turkish scholars who stemmed from the village of Ṭas̲h̲ Köprü (“stone bridge”) near Ḳasṭamūnī [ q.v.] in northern Anatolia. Famous members of the family include: 1. Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Muṣṭafā , preceptor of Sultan Selīm I [ q.v.]. ¶ He was born at Ṭas̲h̲ Köprü in 857/1453, and died on 12 S̲h̲awwāl 935/19 July 1529 in Istanbul. He studied in Bursa and Istanbul under celebrated scholars, and then progressed through a series of medrese s at Bursa, Ankara, Skopje, and Edirne. Bāyezīd II [ q.v.] appointed him preceptor ( k̲h̲od̲j̲a ) of his son …

b. ʿĀdil ( fl. late 15th-early 16th century), Ottoman historian and author of one of the ¶ earliest histories in Turkish of the Ottoman dynasty. Urud̲j̲ b. ʿĀdil el-Ḳazzāz was the son of a silk merchant, lived in Edirne and was a kātib [ q.v.] by profession. His only known work, the Tewārīk̲h̲-i āl-i ʿOt̲h̲mān , was composed most probably during the reign of Bāyezīd II [ q.v.]. No other biographical details about him are known. For early Ottoman history, Urud̲j̲’s history was based largely on royal calendars, taḳwīm s, and on various menāḳi̊b-nāme s, including that by Yak̲h̲s̲h̲ī Faḳīh [ q.v.],…