Translation of A Source Concerning Egypt’s Occupation Period (1798-1801): Mustafa Behcet Efendi and His Work "Târîkh-i Mısır"

Abstract

Egypt, which has preserved its quality as one of the important centers from past to present, became a part of Ottoman Empire in 16th century, but only two centuries later it turned into an international problem. It has been given importance due to its changing structure over time and many studies have been written about Egypt. Among these, chronicles have a special place. Because these works, in which the events are written day by day in a chronological order, are among the rarest sources of historians to describe history better. Two of the chronicles that written about Egypt belong to ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jabartī (d. 1825), an Egyptian historian. The first of these is Aja’ib al-Athâr fi’l-Tarâjim va'l-Akhbâr which includes the general history of Egypt and the other work of the author is Mazhar al-Taqdîs bi-dhahâb Davlat al-Fransîs focusing on the French expedition to Egypt in 1798 under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte. After it was completed, Selim III wanted Mazhar al-Taqdîs to be translated into Turkish and the work was translated by Mustafa Behcet Efendi (d. 1834) in a short time. Our study comprises this translation known as Târîkh-i Mısır. It was published in Cerîde-i Havâdis and repeatedly copied that we detected fourteen of these copies during our study and we had the opportunity to examine twelve of them. Within the scope of our study, we aimed to analyze the general structure of Târîkh-i Mısır and to evaluate the scientific value of the work. Along with the main axis of our research the Târîkh-i Mısır, in our study, we briefly included the life stories and works of Abd al-Rahman al-Jabartī and Behcet Efendi. Then we have detailed the characteristics of the translation such as the copies, the reason and date of writing, its content, writing method, literary features, deficiencies and scientific value.