fiabdu AMED DºY RBEKRˆ (b. end of 15th century; d. > May 19, 1542)

Transcription

1 fiabdu AMED DºY RBEKRˆ (b. end of 15th century; d. > May 19, 1542) LIFE fiabdußßamed b. Seyyidı fialı b. D vüd ed-diy rbekrı s life is known to us through information he gives in his History of Egypt. With the exception of K tib Çelebı s Kashfu - unün, fia.d. is not mentioned in any biographical or bibliographical dictionary. 1 K tib Çelebı writes that fia.d translated Ibn al- ülünı s Nuzha sanıya fı aƒb r al-ƒulaf wa-l-mulük al-mißrıya. C. Rieu and F. Babinger wrote biographical abstracts about him. 2 The first comprehensive study on fia.d. s life is available in B. Lellouch s PhD dissertation (1999). fia.d. s birth date cannot be determined. The first datable information available about him is that he met ºdrıs-i Bidlısı in if around Zilhicce 917/February-March 1512, when ºdrıs was on a pilgrimage. Since fia.d. could not have been very young at that time, he must have been born at the end of the 15th century. He was probably born in the region of Diy rbekr, although we have no proof of this other than his sobriquet Diy rbekrı. Although a sobriquet is not always proof of a birth place, the fact that he wrote mainly in Turkish makes it plausible that he stemmed from a Turkish-speaking environment, and that he wasn't born in the Hijaz or in Egypt. He also identifies himself as a Turk (Tµrk, Tµrk o lanª). 3 During his stay in the Hijaz, fia.d. studied in the Q ytb y madrasa in Mecca. It was probably there that he studied anefı jurisprudence. At the same time he led a life of mystical contemplation in Mecca as a Qalender dervish. He appears to have been in Egypt in Zilhicce 922/January 1517 as he claims to have witnessed the battle of Rıd niyye (al-rayd nıya), which allowed the Ottomans to capture Cairo. However we know that in Rebiµlevvel 923/April 1517 he was back in the Hijaz, since he witnessed the Portuguese attack on Cidde (Jidda). He returned to Cairo in Saban 923/ August 1517, carrying a letter from the Ottoman admiral (re ıs) Selm n (d. 934/1527) which he then handed to the grand vizier Yünus Pa sa (d. 923/1517). One might say that he did not have the right connections in the Ottoman elite: a few days later Selm n was called to Cairo by Sultan Selım I. ( / ) and arrested, and Yünus was executed shortly after the sultan s departure from Cairo ( Saban 923/August-September 1517). At the beginning of the Ottoman presence in Cairo, fia.d. lived here and enjoyed the company of lower-ranking characters. However in 931/1525 he was befriended by ºskender Çelebı (d. 941/1535), the finance minister (ba s defterd r) of Rümeli, who had come to Egypt with the Grand Vizier ºbr hım Pa sa (d. 942/1536). ºskender Çelebı provided fia.d. with material help when the latter spent a year in Istanbul as an applicant for a teaching or a legal position (mµl zªm), probably shortly after the end of 1

2 ºbr hım Pa sa s tenure in Egypt. It seems that fia.d. returned to Egypt without securing a position. We do not know when or by whose aid he became the judge (q ı) of Dimy (Damietta). He held this position under µsrev Pa sa ( / ), under the second governorship of Sµleym n Pa sa ( / ), and under D vüd Pa sa ( / ). He was dismissed in 947/ and then reinstated. He was still in this position on 3 Safer 949/19 May 1542, a date which forms the terminus post quem of the composition of his History of Egypt. After this date there is no information available about fia.d. He was no longer the q ı of Dimy in 952/ or thereafter, as testified by the registers of the city s court of justice. 4 fia.d. was one of a number of Turkish-speaking immigrants to Mamluk lands on the eve of the Ottoman conquest. His career exemplifies the openings for social mobility available to a anefı Turkish-speaker: although he was not an Ottoman subject before 923/1517, he became part of the elite in Ottoman Egypt. WORKS Tercµme-i en-nµzhe es-seniyye fı žikr el-ƒulef ve l-mµlük el-mªßriyye (History of Egypt) Presented to D vüd Pa sa, this work is a Turkish-language adaptation, followed by an addendum (žeyl), of an Arabic-language chronicle entitled Nuzha sanıya written in 882/ by the Cairene asan b. al- ülünı ( / ). In his translation, fia.d. faithfully follows the structure of the Nuzha. He tells the history of the Prophet and the four rightly guided caliphs, and the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs down to al-mustanjid bill h ( / ). This first part of the work goes from foll. 2b to 39b. In the second part of the work, which extends from foll. 39b to 85b, he illustrates the history of Egypt from pre-islamic times up to its rule by Muslim governors (vµl t) and kings (mµlük). He organizes this section according to periods of reigns down to the Mamluk sultan Q ytb y ( / ). The Turkish adaptation is approximately eight times as long as the Arabic text. While asan b. al- ülünı generally gives a very concise list of names and dates, fia.d., bearing in mind the moral significance of history, inserts anecdotes (at times autobiographical) and elaborates on some rulers, especially those of the second half of the 10th/ 15th century. The addendum (žeyl) in the Turkish adaptation of the Nuzha, found on foll. 85b- 364a, covers the history of Egypt between / The text is organized at first by the regnal years of the last Mamluk sultans and Selım I, and then covers the governorship of ayr Beg ( / ). Few dates are given here. From 14 Ramazan 923/30 September 1517 onwards the narrative becomes more elaborate and is organized around events (veq yifi), for which precise dates are given. These veq yifi are grouped by month and year. As S.M. es-seyyid Mahmud and M. Winter pointed out, fia.d. offers a Turkish adaptation (without mentioning his source) of the Bad ifi 2

3 al-zuhür, from this point on down to the end of 928/19 November 1522 (which is the end date of the known text of the Bad ifi). Written in Arabic by the Cairene Ibn Iy s (b. 852/1448; d. after the end of 930/28 October 1524), the Bad ifi is a history of Egypt which, for the period contemporary to its original author, takes the shape of a diary. fia.d. adds a few original elements, the most remarkable of which is the long narrative, based on firsthand knowledge, of the Red Sea events of 923/1517 (foll. 137a-162a). For the years / , he uses the unfinished and lost twelfth book (juz ) of the Bad ifi. 5 The narration is much shorter for 931/ and, starting from the following year, very succinct, devoid of dates, and organized around various governorships. The section on the governorship of D vüd includes a section of praise for the pa sa. This work gives an outstanding narrative of the revolt of the Circassians (929/ 1523) and of A med Pa sa s (930/1524) revolt, and sheds light on the work of Ibn Iy s. The author writes in an extremely beautiful and original style, with few borrowings from Arabic and Persian, and uses unique idiomatic expressions. The moral concerns of the author led him to insert a large number of otherwise unknown proverbs. However, his History of Egypt did not have any impact on later historiography. Manuscripts: The London manuscript stands out by its literary and sometimes difficult style. It is obviously closer to the now lost autographed work than the other four extant manuscripts. The London manuscript bears no indication of date, location, or copyist. According to Rieu, it can be dated back to the 17th century. It belonged in 1180/ to a certain A medz de, financial officer in Baghdad. The Gotha manuscript, which was copied in 978/1570 and acquired in Cairo by U.J. Seetzen in 1808, is missing approximately fifteen folios. The Cairo manuscript (Ta rıƒ Qawala 42) was copied in 967/1559 or in 997/1588. It is part of the Cavalla waqf which Fu d I ( ) transferred to Cairo. Those two manuscripts are certainly the oldest ones. The Istanbul manuscript was owned by fialı Emırı ( ). Contents: The section headings are partially shortened. The section headings pertaining to months of the years from 924 to 931 are not given here; the years are given in Arabic; the folio numbers are given here following the London manuscript (Add. 7846): 34b: Devlet el-fiabb siyye. 64a: Devlet el-f imiyye bi-mißr el-ma rüse. 65b: Devlet el-eyyübiyye. 67b: al-dawla al-turkiyya. 80b: Sal anat Abı n-naßr Seyfµddın Q ytb y el-ma müdı. 85b: Sal anat el-melik en-n ßir Abı l-safi dat N ßirµddın Mu ammed b. el-melik el-e sref Q ytb y. 91a: Sal anat Melik hir Ebü Safiıd Q nßü. 93a Sal anat el-melik el-e sref Ebü n-naßr C n Bül. 96b: Sal anat el-melik el-fi dil Ebü n-naßr üm n B y. 101a: Sal anat-ª Q nßü l- avrı. 115 (2; due to a pagination error there are two fol. 115) b: Sal anat-ª [...] sul n Selım n. 116a: Niy bet-i ayr Beg. 127b: Žikr el-veq yifi ve l- av dis-i mevl n Seyƒ Cel lµddın Suyü ı. 127b: Sene b: Sene b: Sene a-b: Sal anat [...] es-sul n Sµleym n n. 235a: Sene b: Sene b: Sene b: Sene b: Sene b: ºbtid -i žikr-i a zret-i D vüd Pa sa. 3

4 Fµtü µ s- S m Tercµmesi This is a Turkish adaptation of the first book (juz ) of the Futü al-sh m written at an unknown date. The original work in Arabic was wrongly attributed to al-w qidı (d. 207/822-3). The latter author composed a chronicle bearing this title, but this chronicle is lost. The known text of Futü al-sh m was written after the death of al- W qidı by an unidentified author. The first volume of this pseudo-w qidı s Futü al- Sh m, like its adaptation by fia.d., relates the Arab conquests in Syria from Abü Bakr to the campaigns against Antioch in 16/637. In his adaptation of this work fia.d. does not offer any information about himself or his own lifetime, and the text does not have any significant stylistic peculiarity. By adapting the pseudo-w qidı into Turkish, fia.d. places himself in a well-attested tradition: we know of two other Turkish adaptations of this work from the Mamluk period, by Muß af arır (d.?, work completed 795/1393) and by Mu ammed b. Ac (d. 881/ ). The Ankara manuscript is the sole manuscript of the Fµtü µ s- S m Tercµmesi. It is impossible to ascertain the date and place of this copy or the copyist s identity. In his History of Egypt, fia.d. mentions that, by Selım s request in 923/1517, he adapted and translated into Turkish an Arabic chronicle about the Mamluk sultan Barsb y s campaign against mid (Diyarbakªr) in 836/ The text is lost, and the identification of this Arabic chronicle is problematic. fia.d. composed a treatise of anefı fiqh, the Nuƒbat al-mamlük fı ta rır tu fat al-mulük, which he presented to Selım in 923/1517. Manuscripts of this work are known to exist. He also mentions in his History of Egypt that he composed a commentary ( ser ) on the a ı of Buƒ rı during his stay in the Hijaz. BIBLIOGRAPHY Tercµme-i en-nµzhe es-seniyye fı žikr el-ƒulef ve l-mµlük el-mªßriyye: Manuscripts: (1) Cairo, D r al-kutub, Ta rıƒ Turkı 190-m, 203 fol., 33 lines, nesih. With the title En-nµzhe es-seniyye fı žikr el-ƒulef ve l-mµlük el-mªßriyye (2) Cairo, D r al-kutub, Ta rıƒ Turkı Qawala 42, 362 fol., 21 lines, nesih. With the title Tercµme en-nµzhe es-seniyye fı žikr el-ƒulef ve l-mµlük el-mªßriyye (3) Gotha, Forschungs- und Landesbibliothek, Orient. T 156, 161 fol., 21 lines, nesih. With the title Tercµme en-nµzhe es-seniyye fı žikr el-ƒulef ve l-mµlük el-mªßriyye (4) Istanbul, Millet Kµtµphanesi, Ali Emiri Tarih 596, 452 fol., 19 lines, nesih. With the title Nev dirµ t-tev rıƒ (5) London, British Library, Add. 7846, 367 fol., 21 lines, nesih. With the title Tercµme en-nµzhe es-seniyye fı žikr el-ƒulef ve l-mµlük el-mªßriyye (Charles Rieu, Catalogue of Turkish manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1888), 66-67). Editions: Two excerpts of the text were edited in transliteration and French translation by B. Lellouch in his PhD Dissertation (pp ; facsimile of the London manuscript p. XIII-LXVI). The first is the account of the end of the Mamluk rule and 4

5 the Ottoman conquest (foll. 101a-119b). The second is the account of the same events inserted as an anecdote in the entry for 17 Muharrem 925/19 January 1519 (foll. 185b-192b). Fµtü µ s- S m Tercµmesi Manuscript: (1) Ankara, Milli Kµtµphane, Yz. A. 29, 261 fol, 17 lines, nesih. Editions: None. General Bibliography: Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke (Leipzig, 1927), Stanford J. Shaw, Turkish Source-materials for Egyptian History, Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt, ed. Peter M. Holt (London, 1968), 45. Seyyid Muhammed es-seyyid Mahmud, XVI. Asªrda Mªsªr Eyâleti (Istanbul, 1990), Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Egypt's Adjustment to Ottoman Rule. Institutions, Waqf and Architecture in Cairo 16-17th centuries (Leiden, 1994), 11. Michael Winter, An Arabic and a Turkish Chronicler from the Beginning of Ottoman Rule in Egypt : A Comparative Study, Aspects of Ottoman History. Papers from CIEPO IX, Jerusalem, ed. Amy Singer and Amnon Cohen (Jerusalem, 1994), Benjamin Lellouch, Le douzième guz perdu des Bad ifi al-zuhür d Ibn Iy s à la lumière d une chronique turque d Égypte, Arabica, vol. 45 (1998), Benjamin Lellouch, L Égypte d un chroniqueur turc du milieu du XVIe siècle. La culture historique de Abdussamad Diyârbekrı et le tournant de la conquête ottomane, PhD dissertation (EHESS, Paris, 1999). Benjamin Lellouch, Les Ottomans en Égypte. Historiens et conquérants au XVIe siècle (Paris, forthcoming). 1 See the entry on asan b. ülün s Nuzha sanıya in K tib Çelebı, Kashfu - unün fian as mı l-kutub wa l-funün, ed. S. Yaltkaya-R. Bilge, vol. 2 (Istanbul, ), Charles Rieu, Catalogue of Turkish manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1888), 66-67; Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke (Leipzig, 1927), fiabdußßamed Diy rbekrı, Tercµme-i en-nµzhe, London, British Library, Add. 7846, fol. 363a. 4 A certain Seyfµddın functioned as judge in Sevval 952/December 1545-January 1546; cf. D r al-wa- ± iq al-qawmıya (Cairo), Sijill t Dumy, 1. 5 Benjamin Lellouch, Le douzième guz perdu des Bad ifi al-zuhür d'ibn Iy s à la lumière d'une chronique turque d'égypte, Arabica, vol. 45 (1998), Benjamin LELLOUCH August