Re: Christian Turks of the Dobruja
12. Istanbul, Library of the ‘Aya Sofya, No. 2985 : Al-awamir al-‘alaniya fi’l-umur al-‘ala’iya, by Husain b. Muhammad b. ‘All al-Ja’fari ar-Rughadi () al-mushtahir bi-Ibn Bibi al-munajjima (MS., p. 10, 1. 7), 744 pages; cf. F. Tauer, ‘ Les manuscrits persans historiques des bibliotheques de Stamboul, iv,’ in: Archiv Orientalni, iv, 1932, p. 92.
The Turkish Historical Society have announced their intention to publish a facsimile of the manuscript.
13. Notice on the donation, accompanied by the sultan’s seal, on the frontispiece.
14. Edited by M. Th. Houtsma, Recueil IV: Histoire des Seldjoucides d’Asie Mineure d’apres l’abrege du Seldjouknameh d’Ibn Bibi, Texte persan, Leyden, 1902.
Prof. Duda has claimed (loc. cit.) that the abridgement was made in the lifetime of Ibn Bibi, assuming that the Malik-i (or: amir-i) diwan at-tughra Amir Nasir ad-din Yahya al-ma’ruf bi-Ibn al-Bibi (Rec., iv, p. 2,1. 3, and p. 196,1. 2) is the author of the original — which he is most certainly not since from the original we know (see above, n. 3) that its author was named Husain (al-mushtahir bi-Ibn al-Bibi); there is no mention in the original of an Emir Yafrya nor of the office which according to the abridgement he held. The chapter heading in Rec., iv, p. 196, appears in the original MS., p. 442, simply as . Prof. M. Fuad Köprülü (in Belleten, vii, 1943, p. 388 seq.) is certainly correct in regarding the Emir Yahya as the brother of Husain but errs in believing that he is the author of the abridgement which explicitly attributes to him the authorship of the original (). I see no solution of this puzzle other than the assumption that the author of the abridgement, who remains anonymous, has attributed to Yahya Ibn Bibi what belonged to Husain Ibn Bibi, probably after the latter’s death and in order to ingratiate himself with his new superior in the divan. Though we do not know what office Husain had held, it is probable that he was his brother’s predecessor as malik-i diwan at-tughra. It is the very office which their father Majd ad-din Muhammad Tarjuman had held until his death in 1272. He is described as chief of the insha office, which is probably identical with the diwan at-tughra (see W. Bjorkman, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Staatskanzlei im islamischen Aegypten, Hamburg, 1928, p. 44, n. 4). (According to the original he was appointed to this post after having been head of the ‘tent and carpet depot’ firash-khane-i khass [MS., p. 443, 1. ii : ].)
At least it is certain that the abridgement was, like the original, written in the reign of Mas’ud; Rec., iv, p. 334, 1. 20 seq.: belongs to the epitomist since in the original, MS., p. 736, 1. 2, the corresponding passage reads: .
15. Muhammad ar-Rawandi, Rahat as-sudur (composed in 1202-3, retouched between 1207 and 1210), ed. Muh. Iqbal, London, 1921 (Gibb Mem. Ser., N.S. ii).
16. I am not dissuaded from transcribing Qutlumush by Prof. Fuad Köprülü’s argument in Tarih Dergisi, i, 1950, pp. 227-230; the passage from ‘Ayni’s ‘Iqd al-Juman quoted in his postscript (ib., p. 236) even gives welcome support to my reading.
17. The last passage taken from Rawandi (p. 128, 1. 5):
reads in Yazijioghlu as follows:
(with this heading Rec. III begins).
In the ‘fore-runner’ (between the asterisks) Yazijioghlu shows himself influenced by Hamdullah Mustaufi’s Ta’rikh-i Guzide (Gibb Mem. Ser., xiv, 1), which reports immediately before the date 471 h. Sulaiman’s dispatch by Malikshah, not against Rum, but against Antioch; ib., p. 441, the name of the Byzantine emperor is given as , to be read Urumanos, i.e. ‘Romanes’; cf. p. 481, where it is corrupted into . On the other hand, Yazijioghlu’s , i.e. fasilyevs, , is a first indication of his turning to Ibn Bibi where this is the usual term for the Byzantine emperor (Rec., iv, p. 14, 11. 2 and 19, p. 15, 11. 9 and 13, etc.); indeed, Sulaiman’s dispatch to Rum by Malikshah is mentioned in Ibn Bibi, in Qilij Arslan’s speech to his son (MS., p. 18, 11. 14-16 ; not in Rec., iv, p. 3):
(= Rec. iii, p. 9, 11. 6-9).
18. Houtsma states (Rec. iii, p. ix) that in the abridged version of the Oghuzname (see above, p. 641, n. 3) the ‘continuation’ refers here and there to sources, e.g. to the Ta’rikh-i Guzide. As far as my reading of the original work goes I have come across no such reference.
19. I have reproduced, translated, and analysed the beginning of this closing chapter in my Das Füerstentum Mentesche, Istanbul, 1934, p. 32 seqq.
20. The MSS. used by Berezin for his edition of Rashideddin’s Jami’ et-tevarikh (, vii, St. Petersburg, 1861, pp. 32-8), contain the tamghas though probably in a form far inferior to the fine tables found in the MSS. of Yazijioghlu’s Oghuzname. In H. Vambery, Das Türkenvolk, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 4-6, and (incomparably better) in L. A. Mayer, Saracenic Heraldry, Oxford, 1933, pls. l and li, the tamghas (in the last named work the entire tables) are reproduced from the Leyden MS. — they are still more finely executed in the Berlin MS.
Occasionally Yazijioghlu makes additions to Rashideddin’s text, some of which are not without interest, e.g. when he expands Rashideddin’s (ed. Berezin, p. 5)
in the following way (MS. Berlin, f. 2b):
This addition (from the asterisk onward) can be regarded as an observation of his own despite the fact that he refers to raviler. Some lines later he mentions an Oghuzname in Uighur characters (); we read further on (f. 3a) that information on the Oghuz is to be found ‘in the Jami’ et-tevarikh and in the Oghuzname’. It is possible that here Yazijioghlu has in mind the famous Uighur Oghuzname made known by Radloff and subsequently studied by Riza Nour, Pelliot, Bang, and Arat — in his own time uigurica were, indeed, in fashion at the Ottoman court — but as far as my notes go there is no passage which could be traced back to that text; what I have said on this in Der Islam, xxx, p. 202, has therefore to be corrected.