Na'īmā

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Na'īmā ( Arabic نعيما, today's Turkish spelling: Naima or Naimâ ; * around 1655 in Aleppo ; †  1716 in Patras ; according to the Islamic calendar 1065 to 1128) was an Ottoman administrative officer and historian and author of the Ta'rīḫ-i Na'īmā (see "Works"). He is often referred to as the first official historian of the Ottoman Empire , although such a title or office was probably only introduced with his successor Mehmed Raşid and so did not exist during Na'īmā's lifetime.

life and career

Mustafā Na'īm (مصطفى نعيم), his real name, was born in Aleppo as the son of a Janissary officer, joined the baltacılar (palace guard of the Sultan ) in Istanbul around 1688 (1100) and was also trained as a scribe there. After completing his training and finishing his service with the baltacılar , he was assigned, initially again as an apprentice, to the scribes of the divān-ı hümāyūn (Imperial Ottoman Chancellery), to which he belonged from then until his death.

During his training Na'īmā developed interests mainly in the areas of literature , history and astrology , which he continued to pursue later.

In 1704 (1116) he was appointed Anadolu muhasebecisi , a high-ranking position in the financial administration that he held several times in the course of his life. His career in the Ottoman administration fluctuated with his position in the favor of the powerful, especially the respective grand vizier . So in 1706 (1118), probably due to the unfavorable reception of some astrological predictions made by high-ranking personalities, he fell out of favor, lost his post and had to stay away from Istanbul for a year. He regained the position two more times and in the meantime rose even higher (1713 (1125): baş muhasebecisi ), before he finally lost it through intrigues within the palace in 1715 (1127) and to the provincial post of defter emīni (director of the land register - and land registry ) was transferred to the Peloponnese (then Morea ), where he died in 1716 (1128).

Works

Na'īmā's main work is his "Ravḍatü 'l-Ḥüseyn fi ḫulāsat-i aḫbāri' l-ḫāfiqayn", completed around 1704 and dedicated to the Grand Vizier Amcazade Hüseyin Paşa (روضة الحسين فى خلاصة أخبار الخافقين; for example: "The Garden of Hussein: Consisting of an outline of the history of the Orient and Occident", literally: "Garden of Hussein in the short version / summary of the news of the East and the West"), mostly simply as "Ta'rīḫ-i Na'īmā "(تاريخ نعيما; "Chronicle of Na'īmā"; Today's Turkish spelling: Tarih-i Naima or Naima tarihi ) - a representation of the history of the Ottoman Empire from 1591 to 1660 (1000 to 1070). For a long time it was one of the most respected sources on Ottoman history ( see also: History of Turkey ) and was printed by İbrahim Müteferrika in 1733 (1147) as one of the first Ottoman books (new editions 1840 and 1863-66). Even today it is used as a source in Ottoman studies .

In addition, Na'īmā kept at least during the term of office of Grand Vizier Amcazade Hüseyin Paşas 1697-1702 (1109-14) a kind of diary of the current events, which later his successor Rāşid as the source for his historical work Ta'rīḫ-i Rāşid ( Tarih-i Raşid , Raşid tarihi ), and published a description of the " Edirne Incident " ("Edirne vaq'ası") and the deposition of Sultan Mustafas II in 1703, which was later also printed in the appendix to the Ta'rīḫ-i Na'īmā appeared.

See also

literature

  • Norman Itzkowitz: Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition. University of Chicago Press 1980, ISBN 0-226-38806-9 .
  • Hans-Jürgen Kornrumpf: Naimâ, Mustafa . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, p. 288
  • Gül Şen: The Event of Edirne (1703). Astrology as a strategy for legitimizing power and overcoming contingency. In: Das Mittelalter , Vol. 20, Issue 1 (2015), pp. 115-138 ( online ).
  • Gül Şen: Compilation as a handicraft of the historiographer - On the narrativity in Naʿīmās (d. 1716) Court chronicle Tārīḫ-i Naʿīmā . In: Stephan Conermann (ed.): Innovation or Plagiarism? Compilation Techniques in the Premodern . EB Verlag: Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86893-004-7 , pp. 169-218 ( online ).
  • Lewis V. Thomas, Norman Itzkowitz (Eds.): A Study Of Naima. New York University Press 1972, ISBN 0-8147-8150-0 / Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 1972, ISBN 0-340-16893-5 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Na'īmā
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mustafā Na'īm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ottoman administrator and historian
DATE OF BIRTH around 1655
PLACE OF BIRTH Aleppo
DATE OF DEATH 1716
Place of death Patras