Mustafa Naima (; ''Muṣṭafā Na'īmā'';
Aleppo
Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...
,
Ottoman Syria
Ottoman Syria () is a historiographical term used to describe the group of divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of the Levant, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Ara ...
1655 – 1716) was an
Ottoman bureaucrat and historian who wrote the chronicle known as the ''Tārīḫ-i Na'īmā'' (''Naima's History''). He is often considered to be the first official historian of the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, although this formal office was probably not created until the time of his successor, Rashid.
Life and career
Mustafā Na'īm was born the son of a
Janissary
A janissary (, , ) was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops. They were the first modern standing army, and perhaps the first infantry force in the world to be equipped with firearms, adopted dur ...
in
Aleppo
Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...
,
Ottoman Syria
Ottoman Syria () is a historiographical term used to describe the group of divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of the Levant, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Ara ...
. He joined the
palace guard in Constantinople and was educated as a secretary there. He rose in the financial administration of the empire until the palace intrigues caused him to be sent to a provincial administrative post in 1715.
As a historian Naima mentions the arrival of
Mughal ambassadors: Qaim Beg, Sayyid Ataullah and Hajji Ahmad Saeed, sent by the
Mughal Emperor
The emperors of the Mughal Empire, who were all members of the Timurid dynasty (House of Babur), ruled the empire from its inception on 21 April 1526 to its dissolution on 21 September 1857. They were supreme monarchs of the Mughal Empire in ...
Shah Jahan
Shah Jahan I, (Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram; 5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also called Shah Jahan the Magnificent, was the Emperor of Hindustan from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. As the fifth Mughal emperor, his reign marked the ...
. The ambassadors lodged in the
Seraglio of Saiwush Pasha.
He died in
Patras
Patras (; ; Katharevousa and ; ) is Greece's List of cities in Greece, third-largest city and the regional capital and largest city of Western Greece, in the northern Peloponnese, west of Athens. The city is built at the foot of Mount Panachaiko ...
.
Works
Na'īmā's main work is the ''Ravżatu'l-Ḥüseyn fī ḫulāṣati aḫbāri'l-ḫāfiḳeyn'' (روضة الحسين فى خلاصة أخبار الخافقين in Ottoman; literally: "The Garden of Hüseyin in the Summary of the Chronicles of East and West"). This work was finished in 1704 and dedicated to the
vizier
A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...
Amcazade Hüseyin Paşa. The book covers the events of the years from 1591 to 1660.
Bibliography
*Norman Itzkowitz: ''Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition'', University of Chicago Press 1980, .
*Lewis V. Thomas, Norman Itzkowitz (ed.): ''A Study Of Naima'', New York University Press 1972, / Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 1972, .
*''Annals of the Turkish Empire: from 1591 to 1659''. Trans. Charles Fraser. London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1832.
Volume 1
on Google Books.
*Gül Şen: ''Das Ereignis von Edirne (1703). Astrologie als Strategie zur Herrschaftslegitimation und Kontingenzbewältigung.'' In: ''Das Mittelalter'', vol. 20, no. 1 (2015), pp. 115–138
online
(German).
*Gül Şen: ''Kompilation als Handwerk des Historiographen – Zur Narrativität in Naʿīmās (gest. 1716) Hofchronik Tārīḫ-i Naʿīmā''. In: Stephan Conermann (ed.): ''Innovation oder Plagiat? Kompilationstechniken in der Vormoderne''. EB Verlag: Berlin 2015, , pp. 169–218
online
(German).
See also
* List of Muslim historians
External links
Article in the Encyclopædia Britannica
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naima, Mustafa
17th-century historians from the Ottoman Empire
People from Aleppo
1716 deaths
1655 births
Baltadji