Transcriber's note:
Errors and inconsistencies in accented words, mostlyrelated to Arabic and Turkish names, have been taken careas much as possible, without attempting however to make amajor revision and overhaul of the original text.
ANNALS
OF
THE TURKISH EMPIRE,
FROM
1591 to 1659 of the CHRISTIAN ERA.
BY NAIMA.
TRANSLATED FROM THE TURKISH,
BY
CHARLES FRASER.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE ORIENTAL TRANSLATION FUND
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
SOLD BY
John Murray, Albemarle Street; and Parbury, Allen, & Co., Leadenhall Street.
M.DCCC.XXXII.
LONDON:
Printed by J. L. COX and SON, Great Queen Street,
Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
History, it has been well observed, is, of all other branches ofhuman knowledge, the most attractive, and best rewards the effortsof research. Even the history of the most ignorant and barbarousnations that have ever peopled the globe, may furnish something,either in their modes of government, in their forms of religion, or intheir manners, customs, and laws, which is calculated to amuse orinstruct. The knowledge of the springs and motives of humanactions, and of their consequent effects, whether auspicious or inauspicious,and which operate more or less powerfully on the destiniesof the human race, is, by this channel, conveyed to our minds witha distinctness, perspicuity, and force which cannot, by any possibility,be gained in any other way.
By the investigation of history we become acquainted with pointsof character of the utmost importance, and arrive at the convictionthat good and evil are, in some way or other, combined and interwovenin the affairs of life: and we may often, without difficulty,trace the happiness or misery of millions of human beings to theivact of a single individual; and perceive that impressions have therebybeen made that stamp, for ages, the moral and intellectual characterof mankind.
Without adverting to the rise and downfall of the Roman Empire,out of the dismemberment of which have arisen the principal Statesof Europe, we would merely refer, at present, to the rise, progress,and establishment of Mohammedanism, the followers of which conquered,sword in hand, the whole of the rich and fertile provincespossessed by that empire in the East.
To trace the rise, progress, and final establishment of the Mohammedanpower, from its commencement under Mohammed Mustafa,the prophet of Islamism, and its successive triumphs underthe Khalifs, his immediate successors, would be to detail a seriesof revolutions and successions of dynasties, the most eventful andextensive, the most disastrous and appalling, that have ever takenplace on the theatre of our world.
On this department of deep and lasting interest, though it beamply fitted to remunerate the labour of investigation, it is notour intention, did we possess the vanity to conceive ourselves competentfor the task, to enter. More