Evliya Celebi in Bitlis

Evliya Celebi in Bitlis

Robert Dankoff
Klaus Kreiser

E J. Brill

In the mid-seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Hungarian border with the Habsburgs to the Kurdish-Armenian border with the Safavids. The Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean were Ottoman lakes; although Cossack raids were a constant harrassment in the former, while the latter was marked by a shifting maritime frontier with the Venetians. Austria, Venice and Iran loomed beyond the Ottoman domain as actual or potential foes; while the icy wastes of Muscovy and the steamy jungles of the Sudan lay beyond the “well- guarded regions” of Islam.

One man, Evliya Çelebi, travelled throughout the empire, and even penetrated into the surrounding darkness. He also left a ten-book account of his travels.

For Evliya, who was born on the Golden Horn and raised in the Sultan’s palace, Istanbul was naturally the center of his world, as it was of the empire. He devoted the entire first book of his account to that city, which he always lovingly refers to as Islam-bol, meaning “full of Islam.” All roads led there, of ...