Description
Cihânnümâ, (var., Djihān-numā, Jihannuma ) (جهان نما) (‘View of the World’); Two-part geographic dictionary begun in 1648: part I - seas, their configuration and islands; part II - countries, rivers, mountains, roads and lands newly discovered since the 15th century (i.e. America). Çelebi based the work on Lawāmi’ al-Nūr (‘Flashes of Light’) a translation by Mehmed Ikhlāsī’ from the Latin work Atlas Minor by Gerardus Mercator (in the version published by Jodocus Hondius in Arnhem in 1621); the first use of European atlases and sources in Ottoman literature. About Author, Kâtip Çelebi (كاتب جلبي), or Ḥājjī Khalīfa (حاجي خليفة) was the celebrated Ottoman-Turkish polymath and leading literary author of the 17th-century Ottoman Empire. He compiled a vast universal encyclopaedia, the famous Kaşf az-Zunūn, and wrote many treatises and essays. “A deliberate and impartial historian… of extensive learning”, Franz Babinger hailed him "the greatest encyclopaedist among the Ottomans. His was born Muṣṭafa ibn 'Abd Allāh (مصطفى بن عبد الله) in Istanbul in February 1609 (Dhu’l-Qa‘da 1017 AH). His father was a sipahi[7] (cavalrist) and silāhdār (sword bearer) of the Sublime Porte and secretary in the Anadolı muhasebesi (financial administration) in Istanbul. His mother came from a wealthy Istanbul family.[5] From age five or six he began learning the Qur’ān, Arabic grammar and calligraphy, and at the age of fourteen his father found him a clerical position in the imperial financial bureaucracy. [9] [10] He excelled in penmanship, accountancy and siyāqat ("Treasury cipher").[n 4][11] As the accountant of the commissariat department of the Ottoman army in Anatolia, he fought alongside his father on the Terjan campaign (1624), and in the failed expedition to recapture Baghdād from Persian control (1625). On the return home his father died at Mosul, and his uncle died a month later. In 1626–1627 he was at the siege of Erzurum. Works: Kâtip Çelebi was most productive in the decade up to his death in 1657. He authored at least 23 books, in addition to shorter essays and treatises: Fadhlakat al-Tawārīkh Taqwīm at-Tawārikh Cihânnümâ Kashf aẓ-Ẓunūn ‘an 'asāmī ‘l-Kutub wa'l-funūn Düstûr ül-Amel fî Islâh il-Halel Qānūnnāme-i tashrīfāt Rajm al-rajīm bi’l-sīn wa’l-jīm Mīzān al-ḥaqq fī iḫtiyār al-aḥaq Tarih-i Frengi Rawnaq al-Sultāna Tuḥfat al-kibār fī asfār al-Bihār Sullam al-Wuṣūl ilā Ṭabaqāt al-Fuḥūl Tuḥfat al-Akhyār fī’l-Hukam wa-l’Amthāl wa-l’Asha’ār Rumeli und Bosna