Harran İlahiyat Dergisi

Öz

The role of ambassadors is critical in representing a state before another one. Welcoming an ambassador and receiving him have been considered significant as these actions show not only the power of the host state but also the status of the political relations with the state that the ambassador represents.
Adopting a socio-cultural lens, this study analyses the work that Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī bin Muḥammad bin al-Tamgrūtī (d. 1003/1594-95) wrote on his return from Istanbul, which he visited on a diplomatic mission during the time of Saʿdis.
Relations with Spain, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire were quite significant for the Maghreb during the Saʿdi reign in Morocco between 1511 and 1659. Backed up by the Ottoman soldiers, the Maghreb army won a victory in the Wādī al-Makhāzin War against Portugal in 1578, and after this victory, Aḥmad al-Manṣūr became the Sulṭān and rose to considerable power in the region. However, the relations with the Ottoman Empire, another great power, began to deteriorate after Sulṭān Aḥmad al-Manṣūr rejected to pay Istanbul the annual tax of 1588. Therefore, the Saʿdi Sulṭān sent a delegation to Istanbul in 997/1589 with taxes and various gifts. Al-Fishtālī (d. 1032/1622-23), a vizier and state historian, was also a member of the delegation. Al-Tamgrūtī’ hardly gives enough information about his political power, nor does he provide details as to the content of the letter brought to Istanbul and other similar issues of diplomacy. He reported his observations on social life, albeit not in detail. Al-Tamgrūtī and his delegation were admitted to the presence of Moroccan Sulṭān Aḥmad al-Mansūr on the 10th Rabī'al-awwal, 999/February 5, 1591, the day of Mawlid al-Nabī, and they attended the ceremonies. Al-Tamgrūtī elaborates on these ceremonies in which two Ottoman ambassadors were present.
Although at least one member of the embassy delegations who came to Istanbul from Europe in the 16th century mostly wrote about the trips, the delegations who came to the Ottoman lands from North Africa, particularly those from Morocco, hardly wrote about their experiences. In this respect, al-Tamgrūtī is a key figure, as he wrote about his trip when he returned to the Maghreb from Istanbul with the embassy delegation in the 16th century. This diplomatic mission, which was accomplished at a time when relations with the Ottoman Empire were critical for both sides, is remarkably important in terms of the socio-cultural life that al-Tamgrūtī described in his work entitled al-Nafkha al-miskiyya fi al-sifāra al-Turkiyya. Al-Tamgrūtī’s work, the subject of the present study, was critically edited by Muḥammad al-Ṣāliḥī, and the present study was carried out based on this review.
As could be seen in the analysis, al-Tamgrūtī described cities on his way to Istanbul, mostly based on the narratives of other authors; he did not reserve much space to his own observations about social and cultural life. This, in turn, makes one feel, throughout the book, as if al-Tamgrūtī had not seen these cities himself. While describing Istanbul, unlike Western travellers who vividly depicted the city with its people, shops and bazaars, al-Tamgrūtī described one or two mosques, the house and hospitality of a vizier who hosted him, and how he was received by the Sulṭān, without providing details. While the Fātih Kulliyya was among the places described in detail by many ambassadors or other officials who came to Istanbul during the same years, there is neither information nor observations or stories in al-Tamgrūtī’s work. Although al-Tamgrūtī highlights the abundance of books and libraries in Istanbul, he does not mention the ʿulamāʾ or the scholarly assemblies he attended. However, he reported participating in such assemblies in other cities and receiving ijāzas from the ʿulamāʾ, and he further described them in his work. Despite such major deficiencies, the purpose of the present study is to disclose the social and cultural properties of that period, particularly those of Istanbul in the 16th century, in embassy and travel books, rather than to examine the political relations between the two states or the empowering attacks made by the Saʿdis on the Sudan after this diplomatic mission.