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A New 'World Traveler'? Muhammed bin Ahmed of Edirne (d. ca. 1681) and His Travel Notes
Abstract
This paper examines the life and travel notes of Muhammed bin Ahmed of Edirne (b. ca. 1600 – d. ca. 1681), a Kadizadeli-minded Turkish physician, translator, and a "world traveler" who, he claims, traveled the world for "forty-fifty years." Although he did not write a travelogue, Muhammed bin Ahmed's travel notes dispersed throughout his translations provide us enough data to reconstruct his biography and far-reaching travels in distant geographies. According to his notes, he visited Egypt, Damascus, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, Sindh, and India and met the best scholars and physicians of these lands. He reports that he was in India in 1060/1650, serving the Mughal Shah as his physician. Upon his return to Istanbul, Muhammed bin Ahmed translated seven Arabic texts (three of them in the field of medicine and four in Islamic theology) into Turkish with notes. It was through these translations that he sought the patronage of the Ottoman ruling elite including Sultan Mehmed IV (1648-87, d. 1693), the grand viziers Fazil Ahmed Pasha (1661-76, d. 1676) and Kara Mustafa Pasha (1676-83, d. 1683), the governor of Budin Canbolatzade Huseyin Pasha (1672-73, d. 1680), and Gevherhan Sultan (the daughter of Sultan Ibrahim, d. 1694). In his translations and notes, Muhammed bin Ahmed emerges as a fervent defender of Islamic orthodoxy and a supporter of the Kadizadelis, a seventeenth-century Ottoman revivalist movement named after Kadizade Mehmed Efendi (d. 1635). He refers to religious figures in the lands he visited, comments on beliefs and local customs of the people, compares them with Sunni orthodoxy, and on some occasions, calls for Ottoman military intervention to correct their understanding of Islam, particularly of the Shiite Muslims. Muhammed bin Ahmed's travel notes thus give us a fresh perspective on Ottoman translations as ego-documents. These notes also provide us with an opportunity to understand how Muhammed bin Ahmed's Kadizadeli mindset and patronage relations with the Ottoman ruling elite shaped the way he perceives himself and others and to what extent he is similar or different from his contemporary Ottoman world travelers.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
13th-18th Centuries