Seyahatname

Seyāḥat-nāme (Persian/Ottoman Turkish: سياحت نامه, "book of travels") is the name of a literary form and tradition whose examples can be found throughout centuries in the Middle Ages around the Islamic world, starting with the Arab travellers of the Umayyad period. In a more specific sense, the name refers to the travel notes by the Ottoman Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682).

The Seyahâtnâme of Evliya Çelebi is an outstanding example of this tradition.

The author’s personal name is unknown, and “Evliya” is only his pen name, which he adopted in honor of his teacher, Evliya Mehmed Efendi. Evliya Çelebi’s father was the chief jeweller to the courts, and thanks to the talent of his father Evliya was allowed to enjoy the favor of the court. Because of his gift in reciting the Quran, Evliya was presented to Sultan Murad IV and admitted to the palace, where he received extensive training in calligraphy, music, Arabic grammar, and tajwid. Shortly before Murad IV’s expedition to Baghdad in 1638, Evliya was appointed a sipahi of the Porte. Despite his diverse talents and the opportunity to climb the social ladder, Evliya had a keen interest in geography and invested his wealth into life goal of traveling. He set out on a journey to assemble a complete description of the Ottoman Empire and its neighbors and to provide a complete record of his travels as a first-person narrative.

In his ten-volume Seyâhatnâme, Evliya describes in Volume I: the capital city of Istanbul (his birthplace) and its surroundings; in II: Bursa, İzmir, Batum, Trabzon, Abkhazia, Crete, Erzurum, Azerbaijan, Georgia, etc.; in III: Damascus, Syria, Palestine, Urmia, Sivas, Kurdistan, Armenia, Rumelia (Bulgaria and Dobruja), etc.; in IV: Van, Tabriz, Baghdad, Basra, etc.; in V: Van, Basra, Hungary, Russia, Anatolia, Bursa, the Dardanelles, Adrianople, Moldavia, Transylvania, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Sofia; in VI: Transylvania, Albania, Hungary, Nové Zámky, Belgrade, Herzegovina, Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Montenegro, Kanizsa, Croatia; in VII: Hungary, Buda, Erlau, Temesvár, Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, the Crimea, Kazak, South Russia, the Caucasus, Dagestan, Azak; in VIII: Azak, Kafa, Bahçesaray (Crimea), Istanbul, Crete, Macedonia, Greece, Athens, the Dodecanese, Peloponnesus, Albania, Valona, Ochrida, Adrianople, Istanbul; in IX: (Pilgrimage to Mecca) south-west Anatolia, Smyrna, Ephesus, Rhodes, south Anatolia, Syria, Aleppo, Damascus, Medina, Mecca, Suez; in X: Egypt (with historical excursus), Cairo, Upper Egypt, Sudan, Abyssinia.

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