Evliya elebi, Seyahatname (=Book of Travels) Selections from Vol.

1 (From Evliyas account of a procession before the Sultan Murad IV in Istanbul in 1638) () Chapter 36: The group of painters (nan) of the world There is one workshop of the chief painter. The upper stories of the Arslanhane1 contain many rooms on top of each other, where all master painters are based. There are about a hundred shops in other places. However, painters who are attached to the court but living [and working] in their own houses are about a thousand people in total. () Painter-Decorators (nan -i muavvirn): They have 4 shops with 40 members. They do not have a patron saint because it is forbidden to draw pictures according to our religious law. However, the prophet conquered the castle of Khaybar and took from there as booty a flag bearing the picture of a lion, which he gave to his flag-bearer Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, whose son Amatullah also carried it, and became the patron saint of flag-bearers. As Imam Husayns flagbearer, he is buried among the martyrs in Karbala. The prophet did not allow any pictures other than that flag. But the painters of Rum [i.e. Ottoman painters], because of their nature and for the sake of the glorification of the reputation of the religion of Islam, depict Hamza [b. Abd al-Muttalib, the prophets uncle] mounted on horses with a javelin, covered by various weapons and being victorious, so well that the images seem to have a spirit. () And they depict many other victorious heroes on horseback and clad in armour, helmets and weapons, so aweinspiringly and powerfully that Muslim men who see those pictures say Thank be to God that there were such victorious people among the community of Muhammad and take a liking in warfare themselves, which causes them to become warriors of faith. And they depict old heroes from the Shahnama such as Sam, Nariman, Zal, Rustam, Afrasyab, Bijan and Manijeh, Faridun, Kaveh the Blacksmith, and Zahhak, in such a fashion that they seem to be moving towards each other. Having decorated their shops with the pictures of these heroes all around, the painters take part in the procession. The master of these painters was Miskali Solakzade. Tiryaki Osman elebi was a second Behzad2 in depicting fortresses during battles. Tabaz Pehlivan Ali was as good as

Arslanhane (the Hall of Lions) is the name of a building that once stood in the first courtyard of the Topkapi Palace. 2 Kamal al-din Behzad, c. 1450- c. 1535, famous painter who was in charge of royal workshops in Herat and Tabriz under the late Timurids and early Safavids.

Velican3 when depicting the battles of sultans, commanders and viziers in Revan and Baghdad.4 He was also a second Cemid (Jamshid)5 in other aspects. Illustrated-Fortune-Tellers (falcyn- muavver): There is one shop with one member. He is called Hodja Muhammed elebi who was based in a shop in the marketplace of Mahmud Pasha. He was a very old, pious man. He was a healthy old man, so old that he had been honoured even with the company of Sultan Sleyman [r. 1520-66]. In front of his shop, he placed volumes and volumes of pictures of all the abovementioned heroes, the rulers of the past, many prophets, numerous battles at fortresses, and sea-battles among strangest ships, which the masters of the past drew on large Istanbul sheets of paper, and inscribed with their magical and pleasant pens. Passers-by came, thought of a question concerning the future, gave one asper, and opened a page from these illustrations as their fortune [seeking the answer to their question]. Whether it was a battle scene, a scene from the stories of Yusuf and Zulayha, Layla and Majnun, Farhad and Shirin, or Varqa and Gulshah, or a scene depicting victorious monarchs of the past fighting each other or having drinking parties, whatever illustration appeared, he made up a couplet that is appropriate to each picture, like Farhad appeared to this seeker of fortune. With hard work you would also attain fortune, so that the listener lost himself laughing. That old man used to live upon that. Sometimes he went to the sultan with these pictures. He took place in the procession, showing his pictures to the people from a palanquin. Still today, the imitators of Istanbul mimic in numerous versions this picture-fortunetellers poems of subjective assertions, resulting in comical sayings of many thousand kinds. ()

A late-sixteenth-century painter of the Ottoman royal workshop. The campaigns of Revan and Baghdad were undertaken by Murad IV against the Safavids in 1635 and 1638. 5 Legendary Persian king, who is believed to have been responsible for many inventions that made his rule of seven hundred years the golden age of humankind.
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