#BOOK OF TRAVELS EVLIYA CELEBI FREE#

But Çelebi – a title roughly equivalent to Gentleman or Esquire – better suited his status as courtier, musician, and littérateur. The religious offices, including Koran recitation, qualified him for the title Efendi, by which he is sometimes designated. He served them as secretary as prayer-leader (imam) and caller-to-prayer (muezzin) as messenger and courier and as boon companion, confidant, and raconteur.

#BOOK OF TRAVELS EVLIYA CELEBI FREE#

Free of marriage ties, renowned for his wit, his learning, and his fine voice, Evliya had no trouble attaching himself to the retinue of various pashas sent to all parts of the Empire as provincial governors, or outside the Empire as emissaries. Instead, he took advantage of inherited wealth and family and court connections in order to pursue his avocation. All his life he avoided official appointment, whether military or bureaucratic, which would have limited his travel options. ⁵ĭespite Evliya’s claim to have graduated into the cavalry corps, he did not graduate to officer status (which would have earned him the titles Agha or Pasha). Sultan Murad IV earned the title Gazi – warrior for the faith – with his two successful campaigns against the Shi‘i (and therefore heretical) Safavids of Persia, recovering for the Ottoman Empire Revan (Erevan in Armenia) in 1635 and Baghdad in 1638. Just before the Baghdad campaign I received his blessings and graduated from the harem into the cavalry corps with a daily allowance of forty akçe. God be praised that my noble father served as chief goldsmith to all the Ottoman sultans from Süleyman to Ibrahim, and that I was honoured with the companionship of such a noble sovereign and jihad warrior as Murad Khan Gazi. 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. It was on one such occasion, in 1636, that he attracted the attention of Sultan Murad IV himself, who drew him into the palace. Soon he was performing Koran recitations in public, including in Aya Sofya – the great Byzantine church of Hagia Sofia that served, since the Ottoman conquest in 1453, as the chief imperial mosque. God be praised, from childhood until the present, whether at home or during my travels, I have not abandoned this practice. ‘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:įrom Evliya Efendi I mastered the science of reciting the Koran from memory, 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.

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. As a young boy he had a medrese education. His father was chief goldsmith to the sultan. 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. It is also the product of an unusual personality – a cultured Ottoman gentleman, pious yet unconventional, observant and inquisitive, curious about everything, obsessive about travelling, determined to leave a complete record of his travels. It is probably the longest and most ambitious travel account 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. 'Well worth a read.'-Irish Echo 7/2011.The Book of Travels ( Seyahatname) of Evliya Çelebi occupies a unique place in the literature of travel. This brand new translation brings Evliya sparklingly back to life. (source: Nielsen Book Data) Publisher's SummaryĮvliya Celebi was the 17th century's most diligent, adventurous, and honest recorder, whose puckish wit and humor are laced throughout his ten-volume masterpiece. This brand new translation by the foremost scholar of his age, brings Evliya sparkling to life, so that we can relish his charm and intelligence once more, whether he is describing high jinks in the bathhouses, being kidnapped by bandits, Ottoman Istanbul in its baroque heyday or a worldwide convention of trapeze artists. He is in the pantheon of the great travel-writers of the world, though virtually unknown to western readers. Publisher's SummaryĮvliya Celebi was the Orhan Pamuk of the 17th century, the Pepys of the Ottoman world - a diligent, adventurous and honest recorder with a puckish wit and humour. Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (p.

Book of travels evliya celebi