Tursun Beg (; probably born in mid-1420s in
Edirne
Edirne (; ), historically known as Orestias, Adrianople, is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the Edirne Province, province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, Edirne was the second c ...
)
[Woodhead, Christine. "Ṭūrsūn Beg." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill, 2011.] was an
Ottoman bureaucrat and historian who wrote a chronicle dedicated to
Mehmed II
Mehmed II (; , ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (; ), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.
In Mehmed II's first reign, ...
.
Tursun Beg's life is only known from references in his chronicle. He came from a prominent
timariot
Timariot (or ''tımar'' holder; ''tımarlı'' in Turkish) was the name given to a Sipahi cavalryman in the Ottoman army. In return for service, each timariot received a parcel of revenue called a timar, a fief, which were usually recently conqu ...
family and held a
timar
A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military service. A ...
himself.
He worked in the imperial
divan
A divan or diwan (, ''dīvān''; from Sumerian ''dub'', clay tablet) was a high government ministry in various Islamic states, or its chief official (see ''dewan'').
Etymology
The word, recorded in English since 1586, meaning "Oriental cou ...
and accompanied
Mehmed II
Mehmed II (; , ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (; ), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481.
In Mehmed II's first reign, ...
during the
siege of Constantinople in 1453 that led to the
fall of Constantinople
The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 55-da ...
.
Tursun Beg's only known work is the ''Tarih-i Ebülfeth'' (تاريخ ابو الفتح in Ottoman; "The History of the Conqueror").
Bibliography
*Tursun Beg. ''The history of Mehmed the Conqueror''.
arih-i EbülfethHalil Inalcik and Rhoads Murphey trans. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1978.
*Woodhead, Christine. "Tursun Beg."
Encyclopaedia of Islam
The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is a reference work that facilitates the Islamic studies, academic study of Islam. It is published by Brill Publishers, Brill and provides information on various aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, Isl ...
. 2nd Edition.
See also
*
List of Muslim historians
The following is a list of Muslim historians writing in the Islamic historiographical tradition, which developed from hadith literature in the time of the first caliphs.
Chronological list
Historians of the Formative Period
The First Century ...
References
15th-century historians from the Ottoman Empire
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