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Istanbul Through the Eyes of Evliya Çelebi

Evliya Çelebi was a 17th-century traveller who spent more than forty years crossing the Ottoman lands and neighbouring countries and gathered what he saw into the ten volumes of his Seyahatname, the Book of Travels.

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Istanbul Through the Eyes of Evliya Çelebi

Evliya Çelebi was a 17th-century traveller who spent more than forty years crossing the Ottoman lands and neighbouring countries and gathered what he saw into the ten volumes of his Seyahatname, the Book of Travels. According to the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO, the work covers 45 countries and 257 cities, with information ranging from administration and architecture to market produce and the way people spoke. Yet the first volume of this vast work is devoted to a single city: Istanbul, where Evliya was born and where he began to write.

This piece is meant to let you take Evliya along as a guide. First we summarise who he was and what the Istanbul volume of the Seyahatname covers. Then we look at which of the places he describes you can still see today and what to keep in mind while reading him. Rather than quoting Evliya at length, we rely on trustworthy sources written about him.

A Child Born in Unkapanı

According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, and based on what he says in his own work, Evliya Çelebi was born in Istanbul, in Unkapanı, on 25 March 1611. His full real name is not known; the name Evliya is thought to come from his teacher, İmam Evliya Mehmed Efendi. His father, Derviş Mehmed Zılli, was chief goldsmith to the palace. Evliya writes that his father worked on the decoration of the doors and windows of the Sultanahmet Mosque.

The family came originally from Kütahya and settled in Istanbul after the conquest. By Evliya's account, his ancestor Yavuz Er had built the house where Evliya was born in Unkapanı, together with a hundred shops. So for Evliya, Unkapanı was not only his birthplace but the place where his family had put down roots in the city.

Evliya was well educated. According to TDV he studied for about seven years at the Şeyhülislam Hamid Efendi Medrese, learned the Quran by heart from his teacher and learned calligraphy from his father. His fine voice also earned him training in music. He was then taken into the palace and continued his education in the Enderun, the palace school. Turkish Wikipedia relates that he caught the attention of Murad IV while reciting the Quran in the Ayasofya Mosque. By his own account he was often called before the sultan and entertained him with his wit. He left the Enderun after four years as a cavalryman of the sipahi corps.

The Dream in the Ahi Çelebi Mosque

Evliya traces his travels to a dream. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, on the night of 19 August 1630 he dreamt that he was in the Ahi Çelebi Mosque near the Yemiş landing, among a large congregation. In his excitement, where he meant to ask for intercession, the word travel came out instead, and he understood that the wish had been granted. Abdullah Dede, sheikh of the Kasımpaşa Mevlevi lodge, who interpreted the dream, told him to start with his own city. In the phrase TDV quotes, he was to write about "our dear little Istanbul".

Evliya took the advice. He walked Istanbul district by district and gathered information in gatherings and coffee houses. His first trip outside the city was to Bursa in 1640. He went without his father's permission, and when he returned his father not only allowed him to travel but advised him to write a book of travels.

The Ahi Çelebi Mosque where the dream took place still stands. According to Turkish Wikipedia it is in Eminönü, near the Zindan Han. It is also known as the Kanlıfırın Mescidi and the Yemişçiler Mosque. It burned twice, in 1539 and 1653, was long left in ruins and was restored and reopened for worship in the 1990s. It is a small single-domed building of stone and brick, with steps leading up to its door.

A Short Map of Forty Years on the Road

Evliya's journeys are hard to summarise in a paragraph, but the broad outline goes like this. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, in the early 1640s he went to Trabzon and the Crimea and took part in the campaign for Azak. In the following years he travelled through Erzurum, Azerbaijan and Georgia, then Damascus, Syria and many Anatolian cities. In the retinue of his relative Melek Ahmed Pasha he spent many years in the Balkans and eastern Anatolia. In 1663 he joined the Austrian campaign and went to Vienna with an embassy.

In 1671 he left Istanbul for the pilgrimage. He travelled through western and southern Anatolia, the Aegean islands and Syria before reaching Mecca, then crossed to Egypt and toured towards Sudan and Abyssinia. The tenth and last volume of the Seyahatname is devoted entirely to Egypt and its surroundings. Because the tenth volume breaks off abruptly, it is assumed that Evliya died before finishing his work. The place and date of his death are uncertain; TDV cites estimates between 1682 and 1684 and claims that his grave is in Istanbul.

The volumes are arranged roughly as follows.

  • Volume one covers Istanbul and its surroundings.
  • Volume two covers Bursa, the Black Sea coast, the Caucasus and the Cretan campaign.
  • Volumes three and four cover Syria, Rumelia, eastern Anatolia and Iran.
  • Volumes five to eight cover the Balkans, Central Europe, Vienna, the Crimea and Crete.
  • Volume nine covers the pilgrimage and volume ten Egypt.

Why the First Volume Is Istanbul

The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam states plainly that the first volume of the Seyahatname is devoted to Istanbul. An article in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's Great History of Istanbul project notes that this volume covers almost every subject related to the city. The same article cites the chapter titles of John Freely's book on Evliya's Istanbul as an example: Evliya's dream, talismans, the conquest of Constantinople, Topkapı Palace, the sultans' tombs, the guilds, holy men and cemeteries, the suburbs. These headings give a good idea of the kind of city portrait the first volume draws.

The first volume covers not only the walled city but also the shores of the Bosphorus. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam's entry on Rumelihisarı notes that Evliya names the fortress's outer gates as the Hisarpeçe, Dizdar, Sel and Dağ gates, and that this information comes from the first volume. That scholars still turn to Evliya for the names of the fortress gates shows how this volume is used as a reference work on the city.

What stands out when you read the first volume is how Evliya describes buildings and people together. When he writes about a mosque or a market, the people who work there, the goods on sale, the neighbourhood's famous dishes and the way people talk all find their way onto the page. Turkish Wikipedia notes that the Ottoman food historian Marianna Yerasimos counted 44 kinds of pilaf, 40 soups and nearly 50 kinds of bread in the Seyahatname. Evliya's Istanbul is therefore not a list of monuments but a living city.

A Writer Who Listed Every Guild

One of the long sections of the first volume is the survey of Istanbul's tradesmen. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam's entry on esnaf, the guilds, notes that Evliya lists the guilds of 17th-century Istanbul one by one by name, citing this section of the first volume.

In an article for the Great History of Istanbul project, the historian Arif Bilgin extracted only the food trades from Evliya's records and set them out in a table. A few examples from it show well how Evliya saw the city.

  • According to Evliya, 300 people made and sold simit in 70 shops.
  • Of the 500 yoghurt shops, 100 were in Eyüp. The yoghurts of Sütlüce, Kasımpaşa, Ortaköy, Kanlıca and Üsküdar were famous.
  • Unkapanı had an official in charge of the flour supply and a guild of flour sellers. The sultan's fish official sat outside Unkapanı, at the old fish market on the shore.
  • At the tahmis, the coffee-grinding house, in Tahtakale, all the coffee to be sold within the judicial district of Istanbul was ground. Evliya counts a hundred mortars and three roasting ovens there.
  • There was a state-owned vegetable market at the foot of the Yemiş landing, and the grape millers worked in the Ahi Çelebi Mosque Street.
  • The list even includes fishermen who lowered clay pots on ropes into the reed beds of Kağıthane to catch gobies.

Bilgin stresses that the numbers of shops and workers Evliya gives need to be tested, though they give an idea of the scale of the trade. Keep that warning in mind whenever you read Evliya.

The Guilds Passing the Procession Kiosk

In Ottoman Istanbul there were ceremonies in which the guilds paraded through the city in great processions. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam's entry on orducu, the tradesmen who followed the army, guildsmen joining a campaign left Istanbul in a ceremony called the army procession. Gathering early in the morning in their markets, the guild groups passed in front of the Procession Kiosk, the Alay Köşkü, in their own costumes, with their tools, tents and drums, showing off their skills. They then left by Edirnekapı and set up their tents on the Davutpaşa plain. The entry lists the first volume of the Seyahatname among its sources.

The Procession Kiosk still stands at the corner of Gülhane Park, on the old palace wall facing Alemdar Caddesi. According to TDV's entry on the kiosk, it was built so that the sultans could watch processions passing along this street, and it takes its name from that role. The building you see, however, is not the one Evliya saw: according to its inscription it was built under Mahmud II, in 1810 or 1819-1820, in place of an older kiosk. Standing in front of it and looking at the street, picturing the guilds Evliya listed passing here with their tools turns his list into a concrete scene.

How to Read Evliya

Evliya is a pleasure to read but needs to be used with care. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam writes that he often liked to exaggerate, that he sometimes invented an episode to colour his account, and that he included incredible stories to hold the reader's interest. The same entry notes that his style is plain and warm, as if he were talking, and that he paid special attention to how people spoke in the places he visited. He was also playful enough to write short notes on walls asking passers-by to say a prayer for him.

Four Istanbul examples show how to read him.

  • Hezarfen Ahmed Çelebi. According to TDV, everything known about him comes from the Seyahatname. Evliya writes that Hezarfen took off from the Galata Tower, flew against the southwesterly wind and landed at Doğancılar Square in Üsküdar. TDV notes that the distance could not have been covered by flapping wings with arm power and that it is thought possible only with a simple glider.
  • Lagari Hasan Çelebi. TDV describes him as a craftsman said to have flown in the reign of Murad IV with rockets made of a gunpowder paste. According to Turkish Wikipedia, this story too rests on the Seyahatname: Lagari is said to have risen on a rocket before the sultan at Sarayburnu and come down into the sea in front of the Sinan Pasha Kiosk.
  • Fountains. According to Evliya's note on the water carriers, they filled their skins at the 9,999 fountains of Istanbul. Round and inflated numbers like this are common in Evliya.
  • The lead-roofed cellar. Evliya attributes the lead-roofed cellar in Galata to the Umayyad caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz. Turkish Wikipedia and TDV state that the building was the basement of the tower of the Galata walls at the entrance to the Golden Horn in Byzantine times. Today it is known as the Yeraltı Mosque.

Evliya's figures and legends do not make his observations worthless. On the contrary, they are a rare record of which story was attached to which building and how people spoke about a place. A good reader reads Evliya alongside other sources.

Evliya's Istanbul Along the Golden Horn

The best place to follow Evliya is the Golden Horn shore between Unkapanı, where he was born, and the Yemiş landing, where he had his dream. Unkapanı today lies at the peninsula end of the Atatürk Bridge, formerly the Unkapanı Bridge, which links the historic peninsula to Beyoğlu. In Evliya's list of trades, Unkapanı appears as the centre of the city's flour supply.

Walking from Unkapanı towards Eminönü, you pass through the area where many of the trades on Evliya's list were carried on: the flour, fish, fruit and vegetable landings and the tahmis of Tahtakale where coffee was ground. Most of the streets have changed, but the dense web of trade between the shore and the markets can still be felt.

At the end of the walk, stop at the Ahi Çelebi Mosque. The small mosque where Evliya had his dream is a working place of worship. Time your visit outside prayer times, wear clothes that cover shoulders and knees, women are expected to cover their hair, take off your shoes at the entrance and keep quiet inside. According to Turkish Wikipedia, the building is among the mosques named in the lists of Mimar Sinan's works.

From Galata to Eyüp

Across the Golden Horn, two of Evliya's stories await you. The first is the Galata Tower. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the tower was built by the Genoese in the mid-14th century as part of the Galata walls and in Ottoman times served for a while as a prison and then as a fire watchtower. It was restored again by the General Directorate of Foundations in 2020 and is now visited as a museum. Looking towards Üsküdar from the top, you can judge the distance of the Hezarfen story with your own eyes. According to the Ministry's page, visitors under 18 must be accompanied by their parents; check hours and tickets on the official site.

The second stop is the Yeraltı Mosque near the Karaköy ferry landing. The building Evliya calls the lead-roofed cellar, which he says was used as a wheat store, was converted into a mosque in the 1750s according to Turkish Wikipedia. Standing under the low vaults and holding Evliya's legend next to the building's Byzantine past is a good reading exercise. This is also a working mosque, and the same etiquette applies.

Eyüp holds a special place in Evliya's life. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, Evliya traces his decision to go on the pilgrimage to a dream he had after visiting the tomb of Eyüp Sultan on the Night of Power, and he left Istanbul in May 1671. According to Arif Bilgin's table, Evliya also writes that a fifth of the city's yoghurt shops were in Eyüp. When you visit the Eyüp Sultan Mosque today, keep the same etiquette: come outside prayer times, dress appropriately and stay quiet around the tomb.

The Manuscripts of the Seyahatname and UNESCO

The main manuscripts of the Seyahatname are in Istanbul. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, recent studies show that the principal copies are in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library, with the first and second volumes in the Baghdad Kiosk collection. According to the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO, the manuscripts are kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library and the Süleymaniye Manuscript Library, and Evliya Çelebi's Book of Travels was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register in 2013.

According to the same commission, UNESCO's 35th General Conference in 2009 included the 400th anniversary of Evliya Çelebi's birth among the anniversaries to be celebrated in 2011. So 2011 was the year Evliya was commemorated on a world scale.

The history of the printed text is long too. According to Turkish Wikipedia, the first six volumes were printed in Istanbul from 1896 onwards and the remaining volumes appeared between 1928 and 1938. The page on the cover of this article is the title page of the first volume of that Istanbul printing begun in 1896. Today there is a ten-volume edition in the Latin alphabet as well as editions in modern Turkish; according to Turkish Wikipedia, Orhan Şaik Gökyay's transcription of the first volume brought the work to a much wider readership.

A Day in Evliya's Footsteps

If you want to read Evliya's Istanbul in one day, we suggest this order.

  • Morning in Eyüp. Visit the Eyüp Sultan Mosque and its surroundings at a quiet hour.
  • Towards midday, Unkapanı and the Golden Horn shore. Walk along the water from the district where Evliya was born towards Eminönü.
  • Early afternoon, the Yemiş landing and the Ahi Çelebi Mosque, then the streets of Tahtakale.
  • Mid-afternoon, the Procession Kiosk at Gülhane. Stand in front of it and look at the street the guild processions passed along.
  • At the end of the day, cross the Galata Bridge to the Yeraltı Mosque in Karaköy and climb from there to the Galata Tower.

If you are wondering where to start, English Wikipedia points to two options: Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall's translation of 1834, which covers the first two volumes, and Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim's 2010 translation of selections from all ten volumes. Hammer's language is dated; for newcomers the selections are easier going. Turkish readers can start with an edition of the first volume in modern Turkish.

Take a few pages of the first volume of the Seyahatname or a book about Evliya with you, and at each stop look at what he says about the place. Read his exaggerations with a smile and his observations with care, and the distance between the Istanbul of four centuries ago and the city of today will feel shorter than you expect.

Sources

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