Abstract
The great Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi, who lived in the 17th century, trained by distinguished teachers in Saray-ı Amire through his father from his early age. After seven years of madrasa education, he continued his calligraphy and music lessons and took lessons in Arabic, Persian, Greek and some Latin, which were the common foreign languages of that time. Evliya Çelebi who started his travels after he had a dream, visited countries such as the Caucasus, Europe, Syria, Iraq, Hejaz, North Africa, Egypt, Sudan, and Abyssinia, especially the Ottoman geography, throughout his life. Evliya Çelebi wrote down the places he visited in his book "Tarih-i Seyyâh Evliyâ Efendi", which consists of ten volumes. Evliya Çelebi, in a fluent language and a unique style, has almost painted the historical, geographical, administrative, religious, mythological, social, economic, demographic, cultural, folkloric, and architectural features and structures of the states, cities, towns and villages he visited. Today, Cizre, which has been established on the Syrian border of the Southeastern Anatolia region and on the edge of the Tigris River, has been a city where many civilizations have ruled in the historical process. After it was conquered by the armies of Islam, Cizre became one of the most important centers of science and wisdom in the region. The social, economic, political and cultural structure of the city during the historical process was noticed by Evliya Çelebi thus the great traveler stopped by Cizre on his return from his trip to Bagdad. Evliya Çelebi stated that Cizre was the oldest settlement built by Noah and the throne center of the Abbasids, so he made various expressions and characterizations about the name of the city. Evliya Çelebi, after briefly mentioning the history of Cizre, he wrote about Cizre's castle, lords, judges, villages, houses, mosques, madrasas, cemeteries, schools, lodges, churches, merchant inns, covered bazaars, shops, baths, rivers, scholars and sheiks, fruits, vegetables and agricultural products and so on. Evliya Çelebi was particularly impressed by the cemetery of Cizre and stated that thousands of scholars, sheikhs, great saints and Companions lay there. He visited Hz. Noah's son Hz. Tarh, Imam Jafar-i Sadiq ibn Imam Muhammad Baqir, Sheikh Mohammed al-Gavs, Imam Ali Mashhad and Sheikh Mohammed ibn Jazari al-Shafii and gave various information about these honorable persons. In this study, the visit of great traveler Evliya Çelebi who lived in the 17th century to the city of Cizre has been discussed. Evliya Çelebi's observations of the city in the 17th century was examined under the headings such as geographical, administrative, social, economic, religious, cultural, and architectural. In the study, manuscript copy of Evliya Çelebi's Travel Book, written in nesih calligraphy and registered with the place number 3234 and 5939 in the Istanbul University Rare Works Collection, Evliya Çelebi's Travel Book, published in print by Ahmed Cevdet in h. 1314/ c.e. 1896, Evliyâ Çelebi's Travel Book prepared for publication by Robert Dankoff, Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı: Transcription-Index of Manuscript No. 304 in Topkapı Palace Library Baghdad and Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi in Contemporary Turkish, prepared by Seyit Ali Kahraman and Yücel Dağlı have been used.