Tac-üt-tevarih - تاج التواريخ.

This volume contains a history of the Ottoman dynasty from its origin to the death of Selim I in 926 AH (22 September 1520 CE), written by Saadeddin İbn-i Hasan Can, commonly known as Hoca Efendi. Saadeddin was, like his predecessor, the author of the Heşt Bihişt, of Persian ethnic origin. His father, Ḥasan Jān ibn-i Ḥāfiẕ Muḥammad ibn-i Ḥāfiẕ Jamāl al-Dīn Iṣfahānī, was a native of Isfahan. From the prologue of the present work, we learn that Ḥasan Jān was the confidential servant of Selim I, in constant attendance upon him during the last six years of the Sultan's life, and tended him in his final illness. From his lips the author received, he says, many anecdotes and traditions relating to that sovereign and his forefathers. Saadeddin, born in 943 AH (1536-37 CE) in İstanbul, entered at an early age the ranks of the Ulema and became in 963 AH (1555-56 CE) Mulazim or assessor of Süleyman's great Müfti, Ebü's-süud. Having been appointed as tutor to Sultan Murat in 981 AH (1573-74 CE), then prince-governor of Magnesia, he remained during his subsequent reign his trusted advisor and maintained the same position under Murat's son and successor, Mehmet III, acquiring also the fame of being a generous patron of learning. He was raised in 1006 AH (1597-98 CE) to the highest juridical post and died as Müfti two years later on 12 Rebiülevel 1008 AH (2 October 1599 CE). The Tac-üt-tevarih has always been held in high esteem as both a model of elegance and as the fullest and most authentic history of the Ottoman dynasty. It is to be regretted that it stops at the death of Selim I, more than half a century before the time of its composition. From the preface, which contains a panegyric on the reigning Sultan Murat III, it appears that it was compiled under his predecessor Selim II, in order to rectify the deficiency of the history written for the latter by Muslihuddin Lari (974 AH/1566-67 CE), but had not been presented to the Sultan because it still lacked a complete record of the reign of Süleyman. Murat III, however, having in the course of a conversation with the author become aware of its existence, desired him to have a copy prepared at once for the imperial library. This copy of the Tac-üt-tevarih is lacking in the biographical notices of the Ulema and Şeyhler found in Add MS 19628, except those of the reigns of Mehmet II (ff 236-275v); Bayezit (ff 381v-407v); and of Selim I (ff 490r-492r). The text contains unvans. The manuscript was likely copied in the 17th century CE.

Unrestricted

Acquired from the collection of Baron Von Kremer.

See Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, p. 53.

Other copies of this text can be found at Add MS 19628, Or 856, Or 7285, Or 7286, Or 7287, Or 7908, and Or 8764. An extract from the text can be found at Add MS 18811. For more information on the author, see Naima I, p. 191; Peçevi II, p. 288; Haj. Khal, Fezleke, I, p. 130; Journal Asiatique, 6e série, Tome II, pp. 262-69; and Hammer, Geschichte der Osmanlichen Dichtkunsten III, p. 98; Geschichte des Osmanliches Reiches, IV, p. 306. A full notice of Saadeddin was written during his lifetime by Kınalızade in the preface of his Tezkere.

The Tac-üt-tevarih was printed in Istanbul in 1279 AH (1862-63 CE) along with a biography of Saadeddin. An incomplete Italian version by Bratutti was published in Vienna in 1649 CE, and a Latin translation of the first part, by Kollar de Kereszten, appeared in Vienna as well in 1755 CE. The reign of Sultan Orchan was translated by William Seaman in London in 1652. Another extract, the Conquest of Istanbul, was published in English with a notice of the author, by E. J. W. Gibb (Glasgow, 1879).