A Contribution to the Sources of the 1730 Rebellion: Evaluations on the History of Çelebizâde İsmaîl Âsım Efendi in the Light of a New Copy

Abstract

The 1730 Rebellion, which broke out under the rule of Patrona Halil, is an important historical event that affected the political balances of the period. While this rebellion led to radical changes in the social and political structure of the period, it was also one of the events that were carefully analyzed in Ottoman historiography. Different sources and chronicles provided various information about the causes, process and consequences of the rebellion, and historians analyzed it from various aspects. Considering the historical importance of the 1730 Rebellion, the manuscripts documenting this period are of great value in terms of both understanding the perspectives of the direct witnesses of the events and illuminating the missing points in historiography.

This article aims to make a new contribution to the studies on the 1730 Rebellion. In this context, a manuscript registered in the Berlin State Library under the number Diez A quart. 73-3 is the focus point of this study. This manuscript is a more comprehensive and extensive version of the Târîhçe, registered in the Svetozar Marković Library of the University of Belgrade and was identified as belonging to Çelebizâde İsmaîl Âsım Efendi, and contains important information about various aspects of the rebellion. Consequently, this study aims to introduce the manuscript in question, compare it with other chronicles of the period, and present its translation. In addition, the contributions of the manuscript to the literature on the rebellion will be discussed, and how this new information can help to understand the rebellion will be evaluated in more detail.