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(? - 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…

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, Nergisī-zāde Meḥmed Efendi (d. 1044/1635), pre-eminent Ottoman prose stylist. He was born in Sarajevo, probably around 994/1586, son of the ḳāḍī Nergis Aḥmed Efendi, and completed his education in Istanbul, becoming a protégé of Ḳāf-zāde Fayḍ Allāh Efendi (d. 1020/1611), from whom (and not, as in some accounts, from his son Kāf-zāde ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Fāʾiḍī Efendi) he received his mülāzemet [ q.v.]. He may have served briefly as a müderris , but his principal employment was as ḳāḍī in various posts in Rūmeli, mainly in Bosnia. Following early appointments (during the period ca, 1022-27 /ca. 1613-18) to Gabela and Čaynič…

(p., T.), a title of Ottoman princes. The term s̲h̲ehzāde (or s̲h̲āhzāde , from Pers. s̲h̲āh “king” + zāda “born of”), “prince”, was one of the titles used for the male children born to a reigning Ottoman sultan. It is said to have been introduced by Meḥemmed I (816-24/1413-21) for his own sons, and over subsequent decades gradually superseded the earlier term …

, Ottoman historian, d. after 816/1413. Yak̲h̲s̲h̲i Faḳīh is the earliest known compiler of menāḳib [see manāḳib ] or exemplary tales of the Ottoman ¶ dynasty in Ottoman Turkish. However, his compilation has not survived as an independent work, and the only reference to it is that made by ʿĀs̲h̲i̊ḳpas̲h̲azāde [ q.v.]. The latter records that in 816/1413, while accompanying Meḥemmed I’s army on campaign, he fell ill and “remained behind at Geyve, in the house of Y…

, Ibrāhīm b. al-Seyyid ʿAbd ül-Bāḳī (1075-1136/1664-1724), Ottoman scholar and biographer. He stemmed from a prominent family of ʿulemāʾ : his father was ḳāḍī of Mecca, his maternal grandfather was naḳīb ül-es̲h̲rāf and his younger brother ʿAbdullāh (d. 1139/1726-7 became ḳāḍī-ʿasker of Rūmeli. Ibrāhīm followed a middle-ranking career as a müderris , later rising to the posts of ḳāḍī of Medina (1119…

, Meḥmed Hemdemī (?-1068/1658), Ottoman historian and musical composer. Very little is known about the life and career of Ṣolaḳ-zāde. Described as “old” at the time of his death, he was perhaps born sometime around the year 1000/1592. He died in Istanbul in 1068/1658. His father may have been a retired ṣolaḳ-bas̲h̲i̊ , whose connections gave his son an early entrée into the Ottoman imperial household, with which he remained closely associated. The mak̲h̲las Hemdemī reflected his status as “constant companion” to Murād IV (1…

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.],…

, (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 …

(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…

, 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 h…

, 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 posthumously to the earlier of only two surviving manuscripts, reads: Kitāb-i tewārīk̲h̲-i pādis̲h̲āhān-i wilāyet-i Hindū we K…

, 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…

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, 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-küt…

(906?-968/1500?-1561) Ottoman Grand Vizier. Born ca. 1500 in a village near Sarajevo, Rüstem Pas̲h̲a came of a family most probably of Bosnian origin (though some sources mention Croatian or possibly Albanian ancestry), whose pre-Muslim surname had been either Opukovič or Čigalič (cf. Albèri, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato , ser. iii, vol. iii, 89; C. Truhelka, Bosnische Post , Sarajevo 1912, no. 80). A register from the ḳāḍī ’s [ q.v.] court at Sarajevo, dated 974/1557, records the sale of a house by Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī ʿAlī Beg b. K̲h̲ayr al-Dīn, mütewellī of Rüstem Pas̲h̲a’s be…