“A Tenacious Reputation for Unreliability:” Re-Viewing Evliya Çelebi’s Description of the Diyarbakir Ulu Cami in the Seyahatname

Abstract

This article examines the role of seventeenth-century writer Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatname (Book of Travels) as an architectural source by “re-viewing” the passages pertaining to his visit to the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir in 1655. Evliya’s intriguing description of a mosque with a dome does not match the surviving main prayer hall with its gabled roof. I parse the apparent discrepancies in Evliya’s presentation of the physical structure by comparing his entries to other historical accounts of the mosque and placing these alongside the evidence provided by the building itself. Countering criticisms of Evliya’s skills of observation, I argue instead that the Seyahatname described what the mosque meant in the context of its Ottoman Islamic history, and how it was received and understood by visitors to Diyarbakir.

Keywords:

• Evliya Çelebi
• Diyarbakir Ulu Cami
• Seyahatname
• Umayyad Mosque of Damascus
• Ottoman architecture
• architectural lineage
• community memory

Notes

1. Ülku Ü. Bates writes that Evliya “was not an official historian or a chronicler” and “his judgement and knowledge of history was that of a cultivated Ottoman gentleman of the 17th century” – see “Evliya Çelebi’s Comments on the Saljuqs of Rüm,” in The Art of the Saljuqs in Iran and Anatolia, ed. Robert Hillenbrand (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1994), 258.

2. Robert Dankoff tests Evliya’s reliability via numbers, presentations of daily life and his use of jokes and satire – see “Chapter 5: Raconteur,” in An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Çelebi, ed. Robert Dankoff (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 153–184. In the foreword to this volume, Suraiya Faroqhi writes that “Evliya’s tenacious and only partly deserved reputation for unreliability has something to do with [poor quotations of textual materials] … [T]he numerous dubious figures, often meant to astonish rather than to inform, have impaired the writer’s credibility,” Ibid., xvii. See also Robert Dankoff, “Establishing the Text of Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatname: A Critique of Recent Scholarship and Suggestions for the Future,” Archivum Ottomanicum 18 (2000): 139–144.

3. Pierre MacKay, “The Manuscripts of the Seyahatname of Evliya Çelebi Part I: The Archetype,” Der Islam 52 (1975): 278–298, esp. 291.

4. See, Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality; Klaus Kreiser, “Evliya Çelebi,” Historians of the Ottoman Empire (2005) https://ottomanhistorians.uchicago.edu/en/historian/evliya-celebi (accessed April 15, 2018).

5. Robert Dankoff, “‘Mığdisi:’ An Armenian Source for the Seyahatname,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 76 (1986): 73–79.

6. Evliya brings in anecdotes of visits from Abrahamic prophets to suggest that pre-Islamic construction undertaken in the city already has monotheistic associations.

7. This reference is to the text that appears in the fourth volume of the edition of the Seyahatname identified with Evliya’s hand (Bagdat Köşkü 305, 200v, 11–30). The identification of this “archetype manuscript” is discussed in MacKay, “Manuscripts,” and Martin van Bruinessen, “Evliya Çelebi and His Seyahatname,” in Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir: The Relevant Section of the Seyahatname, ed. and trans. Martin van Bruinessen and Hendrik Boeschoten (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988), 5.

8. For a brief introduction to Evliya and a partial bibliography of Seyahatname manuscripts and secondary literature, see, J.H. Mordtmann and H.W. Duda, “Ewliyā Celebi,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs (Cambridge: Brill Online, 2012); Robert Dankoff and Klaus Kreiser, Materialien zu Evliya Çelebi II. A Guide to the Seyâhat-nâme of Evliya Çelebi, Bibliographie raisonnée (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992). For anecdotal excerpts, see, Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim, ed. and trans., An Ottoman Traveller: Selections From the Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi (London: Eland, 2010); Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname (Gördüklerim), ed. Mustafa Nihat Özön and Nijat Özön (Istanbul: Kabalcı Yayıncılık, 2012).

9. van Bruinessen, “Evliya Çelebi,” 3–12, esp. 5, 6.

10. MacKay, “Manuscripts,” 279.

11. van Bruinessen, “Evliya Çelebi,” 6.

12. Arabic history writing presents its own questions of form. Abu Abdalla Mohammed ben Omar al-Wakidi (d. 823) wrote the Kitab Al-Maghazi, a history of the campaigns of the Prophet Muhammad. Rizwi Faizer refers to al-Wakidi as an “author-compiler,” engaged in a creative process of arranging the material rather than working with historical intentions. Rizwi Faizer, “Muhammad and the Medinan Jews: A Comparison of the Texts of Ibn Ishaq’s Kitab Sirat Rasul Allah With Al-Waqidi’s Kitab Al-Maghazi,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (1996): 463–489. There is a vast primary and secondary literature on Islamic geographies and chronicles, histories and hagiographies. For a general introduction, see, Fred M. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1998); Albrecht Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source Critical Study, trans. Michael Bonner (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1994).

13. Christine Woodhead, “Historiography, Ottoman,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam Three, ed. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson (Cambridge: Brill Online, 2018).

14. The contemporary biographies of celebrated Ottoman court architect “Mimar” Sinan (d. 1588) are comprised largely of lists of his corpus of buildings and engineering projects and supplemented by notes on expenditures rather than anecdotes about his personality or a treatise on architecture. See Sinan (Mimar), Sinan’s Autobiographies: Five Sixteenth-Century Texts, ed. Howard Crane, with Esra Akın and Gülru Necipoğlu (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

15. Michael the Syrian, Chronique de Michel Le Syrien, ed. J.B. Chabot (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1910), 307.

16. Pierre MacKay mapped Evliya’s journeys, plotting both the viable and the less realistic itineraries in the Seyahatname. Conference presentation cited in Suraiya Faroqhi, “Foreword,” in An Ottoman Mentality, ed. Robert Dankoff, viii.

17. Suraiya Faroqhi, Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 160, 161.

18. Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, I.9.1., 135.

19. Exceptions to this include Howard Crane, “Evliya Çelebi's Journey through the Pamphylian Plain in 1671–72,” Muqarnas 10, Essays in Honor of Oleg Grabar (1993): 157–168; Robert Dankoff, “Evliya Çelebi’s Book of Travels as a Source for the Visual Arts,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 16 (1992): 39–49; Faroqhi, “Foreword,” An Ottoman Mentality, xvi–xviii; Machiel Kiel, “The Physical Aspects of the City,” in Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, 53–63. Heghnar Watenpaugh discusses how Evliya presents the layered historical “stratigraphy” of Aleppo in The Image of An Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 228–233.

20. Brill has thus far issued seven volumes of a series edited by Klaus Kreiser which features excerpts from the Seyahatname that are focused on specific regions, including Bitlis, Albania and its environs, and Anatolia. The Ottoman text is transcribed into Modern Turkish with an English or German translation on the facing page. Extensive annotations and accompanying introductory and essay materials analyze and contextualize these documents. The skillfully translated and edited volume Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir has been the main source for this article.

21. Kiel, “Physical Aspects,” 59.

22. Theories for the façade dating and the potential relocation of the inscription bands are discussed by Estelle Whelan, who concludes they have remained in situ – see “The Public Figure: Political Iconography in Medieval Mesopotamia” (PhD Dissertation, N.Y.U., 1979), 864–866. For the Ulu Cami’s history, construction, epigraphy and decoration, see discussions in: Mahmut Akok, “Diyarbakir Ulucami Mimari Manzumesi,” Vakıflar Dergisi 8 (1969): 113–139, with plans; Terry Allen, A Classical Revival in Islamic Architecture (Wiesbaben: Reichert, 1986); Angela Andersen, “The Diyarbakir Ulu Cami: Social History and Interaction at the Great Mosque,” (Masters thesis, University of Victoria, 2004); Albert Gabriel, Voyages Archéologiques dans la Turquie Orientale with Jean Sauvaget, Recueil d’inscriptions arabes (Paris: E. De Boccard, 1940); Orhan Cezmi Tuncer, Diyarbakır Camileri: Mukarnas, Geometri, Orantı (Diyarbakır: Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Belediyesi Kültür ve Sanat Yayınları, 1996); Max van Berchem, “Matériaux pour l’épigraphie et l’histoire Musulmanes du Diyar-Bekr,” Amida (Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1910): 3–128.

23. This narrative of re-use also appears in much of the scholarship on the city’s history and in architectural studies of the Ulu Cami. It is generally understood that a church and subsequently a mosque were built upon the classical temple temenos.

24. Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, I.9, 133.

25. Ibid., I.9.1., 135.

26. The translators comment on the absence of this “chronogram” – see Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, fn 71. It is not mentioned in any studies of the Ulu Cami. I did not locate any markings that could be interpreted as such during my field visits.

27. This happens at a place called the “Fis Rock.” Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, I.2, 115. Martin van Bruinessen explains that this particular narrative regarding Jonah came from an Armenian writer whom Evliya calls Migdisi, a vocalization of Maqdisi, a person who has completed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem – see “Evliya Çelebi and His Seyahatname,” in Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, 3–12, esp. 9, fn. 6.

28. Evliya Çelebi, I.9.1., 135.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. For analysis of the stone used in the arcade columns, see, O. Kavak, N. Dalkılıç, and V. Toprak, “Geological and Architectural Investigation of Reused Rock Columns in the Great Mosque in Diyarbakir Old City (Turkey),” Mediterranean Archaeology & Archaeometry 11 (2011): 9–22.

32. Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, I.9.1., 135.

33. Ibid.

34. Held in the private collection of Qatari Shaikh Hassan bin Muhammad al-Thani. For discussion of the attribution of the eight folios, see Zekeriya Kurşun, “Does the Qatar Map of the Tigris and Euphrates belong to Evliya Çelebi?,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları/The Journal of Ottoman Studies 39 (2012): 1–15.

35. Robert Dankoff, Nuran Tezcan, and Michael D. Sheridan, Ottoman Explorations of the Nile: Evliya Çelebi’s Map of the Nile and The Nile Journeys in the Book of Travels (Seyahatname) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018); Robert Dankoff and Nuran Tezcan, Evliyâ Çelebi’nin Nil Haritası “Dürr-i bî misîl în ahbâr-i Nîl” (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2011).

36. Naser-e Khosraw, Safarnama or Book of Travels, trans. W.M. Thackston Jr. (New York: Persian Heritage Foundation, 1986), 9.

37. Matthew of Edessa, Armenia and the Crusades Tenth to Twelfth Centuries: The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, trans. Ara Edmond Dostourian (Lanham: National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, 1993), 218.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Kiel, “Physical Aspects,” 59.

41. Under Nisanid (1142–1183), Artukid (1183–1232) and Akkoyun (1401–1507) rulers.

42. M. Canard, C. Cahen, J. Sourdel-Thomine, and H.M. Yinanç, “Diyār Bakr,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs (Cambridge: Brill Online, 2012).

43. Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbekir, I.9.1., 133 and 135.

44. Richard Krautheimer, “Introduction to an ‘Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture’,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 1–33, esp. 8. Krautheimer uses “iconography” in reference to architectural form and profile. I have chosen not to use this term here in light of the many connotations it has for Islamic visual culture and the architectural sphere more broadly.

45. Ibid., 15.

46. J.M. Rogers, “Waqf and Patronage in Seljuk Anatolia: The Epigraphic Evidence,” Anatolian Studies 26 (1976): 75. Infrastructural patronage is clearly outlined in the Siyasat-nama, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, authored by Malik Shah’s vizier Nizam al-Mulk, between 1086 and 1091.

47. This, the largest dome in Islamic architecture at the time, similarly replaced a dome destroyed by fire. Patron Malik Shah’s name was carved into nearby marble slabs. K.A.C. Creswell, “The Great Mosque of Damascus,” Early Muslim Architecture, Volume I, Part I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 167.

48. As described in Volumes 3 and 9 of the Seyahatname. Evliya Çelebi, “Evsafı Camii Ümmeyye” (“Concerning the Umayyad Mosque”), and “Der Sitayişi Camii Ümmeyye” (“In Praise of the Umayyad Mosque”) Seyahatnamesi Volume 9, Anadolu-Suriye-Hicaz (Istanbul: Devlet Maatbası, 1935), 533–540. He made his second visit as part of a hajj caravan.

49. Evliya recounts an extended narrative concerning Yazid I, second ruler of the Umayyads whose palace was adjacent to the mosque site.

50. Evliya, Seyahatnamesi 9 (1935), 537.

51. See Rafi Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The Two Great Syrian Umayyad Mosques: Jerusalem and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 1–15.

52. The Great Mosque of Urfa in the province of Diyarbakir resembles the Great Mosque of Aleppo, which itself is based on the Damascene model – see Oktay Aslanapa, Turkish Art and Architecture (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), 99; J.B. Segal, Edessa ‘The Blessed City’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 213. The Great Mosque of Harran in southeastern Turkey (built c. 744–50, destroyed in the 1260s) and a few other examples of basilica-plan mosques can be located in southeastern Anatolia – see Mattia Guidetti, “The Byzantine Heritage in the Dar Al-Islam: Churches and Mosques in Al-Ruha Between the Sixth and Twelfth Centuries,” Muqarnas 26 (2009): 1–36.

53. Ernst Herzfeld, “Damascus: Studies in Architecture IV,” Ars Islamica 13/14 (1948) (reprint: Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), 135. Tragically, this minaret was destroyed in 2013 during civil war in Syria.

54. The eighth-century Great Mosque of Hama in Syria incorporated arcades and alternating piers and columns after the Damascene model. See John Warren, “Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon,” in Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning, ed. George Michell (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995), 234.

55. The Great Mosque of Cordoba was constructed by the Umayyads of Spain between 784 and 786, with a stone and marble hypostyle hall originally configured in the Damascus pattern. See Jonathan M. Bloom, “The Revival of Early Islamic Architecture by the Umayyads of Spain,” in The Medieval Mediterranean: Cross-Cultural Contacts, ed. M. Chiat and K. Reyerson (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 35–41; and, Nuha N.N. Khoury, “The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century,” Muqarnas 13 (1996): 94.

56. Eleni Bastéa, “Introduction,” in Memory and Architecture, ed. Eleni Bastéa (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004), 6. Bastéa observes that “[m]emory … creates a special relationship with space, holding on to the essence of it, the best and worst, letting the rest of the details fade into gray,” 1.

57. For Islamic conquest topoi and the story of the church shared by Christians and Muslims in Diyarbakir, see, Angela Andersen, “The Tale of the Shared Church in Diyarbakir: Narrative Traditions of the Co-Use of Places of Prayer by Muslims and Christians,” in Articles of Faith: Visual Culture in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds, ed. Eva Baboula et al. (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

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Angela Andersen

Angela Andersen examines the inter- and intra-religious interactions that take place via the built environment, with a focus on the architecture of minority Muslim groups living in the Islamic world. She frequently explores the relationship between human rights and architecture, and the use of often overlooked sources such as poetry and oral history in the study of architectural history. During a postdoctoral fellowship with the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she developed the manuscript for her project “Cemevleri: An Examination of the Historical Roots and Contemporary Meanings of Alevi Architecture and Iconography.” She is currently a fellow at the Center for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, Canada.