Matrâkçı Nasûh’un Süleymân-nâmesi
Authors: Nasûh Matrâkçı 
Published: December 2023

"Information about the life of Nasuh b. Karagöz El-Priştevi, or Matrakçı Nasuh, as he is better known, is quite limited. Estimated to have been born in 1490, Nasuh entered the Enderun. A sipahi and a famous swordsman, Matrakçı Nasuh died after 1561. Nasuh was interested in mathematics and gave his first work in this field. His main field of interest was history. Matrakçı Nasuh wrote a world history under the name of Mecmaʿü’t-Tawârîh, which includes Ottoman history from creation to 1551 by order of the ruler of the time, Suleiman the Magnificent. The parts of this work that include Ottoman history, more precisely known as Süleymân-nâme (Suleiman-nâme), describing the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, are what earned him his real fame. Matrakçı Nasuh consulted various sources while writing the Ottoman history parts. For this reason, his Ottoman history parts, that is, the parts containing the dates 1300-1520, are far from originality. What makes his work different are the miniatures he drew and included in his work. For example, he enriched the sections describing the period of Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512) and Yavuz Sultan Selim (1512-1520) with miniatures. Matrakçı also referred to some sources while writing his Süleymân-nâme. Kemalpaşazade’s Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân was one of the primary sources he consulted. He was greatly influenced by the style of Ishak Çelebi, Sujudi and especially Kemalpaşazade. Matrakçı Nasuh broke new ground in the field of Ottoman historiography by adding unmanned topographical miniatures to his work written in a literary style and became the pioneer of this style. One of the reasons why his work was decorated with such miniatures is that Suleiman the Magnificent and Makbul Ibrahim Pasha attached importance to cartography and geography. Suleiman the Magnificent’s desire to have works written in this style continued until the 1550s. As a matter of fact, Nasuh was going to search for a new patron in 1548. He would finally find the patron he was looking for. To reach this patron, he would write a new and independent work. This time he was going to present it to Rustam Pasha by writing about the Iranian campaign of 1548. He finally achieved this goal. The history of this expedition would also form a part of his Süleymân-nâme. Matrakçı Nasuh started to write his work in 1520 and wrote it at intervals. By 1530, he was still writing the parts of the work from creation to 1300. Nasuh must have written the Ottoman history parts of his work after this date. He wrote the parts of the Süleyman-nāme after 1530 in the heat of the day when the events took place. It seems that Matrakçı drew sketches of the cities, towns, and places through which the Ottoman army passed on the same date and then corrected and colored them. However, the view that some of the miniatures in his works were not drawn by him, but that he received support from other people for this, has been put forward for some reasons. However, Matrakçı Nasuh states in his works that he drew the miniatures himself. It is understood that Matrakçı was inspired by bird’s-eye perspective drawings and maps created in the Western world while drawing some miniatures. This study focuses on Matrakçı Nasuh’s name, his life story, and his work Süleymân-nâme and tries to find answers to questions about these."