And may abundant blessings and the most excellent salutations be upon him, the protector endowed with exceptional character, the most noble and perfect of creation, the model for prayer who said, ‘Pray as you saw me,’ the infallible guide, Muhammad, who spoke Arabic best. May blessings be upon him, who laid the foundations of the fortresses of Sharia (the sacred law of Islam), and established them on the basis of prophethood and tariqa (the mystical path of Sufism), and upon his good and pure family. Praise be to God who has ennobled those honoured with worship and travel, and has vouchsafed for me the path to the holy places and shrines. In the Name of God the Compassionate the Merciful, and to Him we turn for help. The excerpts included here (furriers, circumcision barbers, tightrope walkers) give the flavour of these sections that are such rich sources for Ottoman life. By far the longest is chapter 270, comprising the 47 guilds of Istanbul craftsmen and merchants parading before the sultan. The systematic nature of Evliya’s account is reflected in the chapter divisions – a feature found only in this and in the final volume. We have included here Evliya’s description of one of the great imperial mosques of the city also the churches and taverns of Galata and the pleasure park of Kağıthane. And as the centre of his world, Istanbul would become the touchstone and measure of everything he witnessed during his travels. It also provides a template for Evliya’s narrative and descriptive styles, which aim both to instruct and amuse. The opening volume of the Book of Travels is like a guidebook to Istanbul as well as a tribute, offering a vast panorama of life in the city, with descriptions of buildings, monuments and gardens, dress and cuisine, types of occupations and social groups. It proceeds with a historical and geographical survey of Istanbul, including its suburbs along the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. The volume opens with an account of the dream he has on his twentieth birthday, 19 August 1630, in which the Prophet Muhammad blesses his desire to travel. Extract from Chapter OneĮVLIYA BEGINS THE Book of Travels with a volume devoted to Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and his birthplace. Sooyong Kim is Visiting Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College, he is currently working on the formation of the Ottoman literary canon in the sixteenth century. He has published several books, his most recent being An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Celebi. His research has concentrated on Central Asian and Ottoman Turkish texts. Robert Dankoff is Professor Emeritus of Turkish and Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago. He has long been a favoured source on the culture and lifestyle of the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire and historians of this period are indebted to his vivid eyewitness descriptions. Virtually unknown to western readers, Çelebi is celebrated in the Islamic world as one of the great travel writers of the world. Starting with a volume on his native city, he collected his lively and eclectic observations into a ten-volume manuscript the Seyahatname, or Book of Travels. Born in Istanbul in 1611, he started travelling in 1640 and continued for over forty years, stopping eventually in Cairo where he is thought to have died around 1685. Place: Ottoman Empire and its neighbours in the 17th century Author BiographyĮvliya Çelebi is variously described as a Turkish Pepys, a Muslim Montaigne or an Ottoman Herodotus. Translated by: Robert Dankoff & Sooyong Kim Supporting Organizations: Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, Bursa Research Center, Tayyare Cultural Center, Bahçesehir University Civilization Studies Center, Eskisehir Anadolu University Faculty of Fine Arts.An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi The materials collected have been compared to see what has changed and what has remained the same in both territories. Audio and visual materials were collected from the rural and urban areas in the Evliya Celebi Way in West Turkey and in Romania as mentioned in the Seyahatname. The participants have chosen the routes of Evliya Celebi from the Seyahatname (Book of Travels) of him, and documented his impressions and reports in the context of present day. This project aims to follow the route taken by Evliya Celebi, focused on travels of his trips in West Turkey and Romania (Timisoara, Alba Iulia, Sibiu, Bucharest, Mangalia).

Book of travels evliya celebi