(INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR ARMINIUS VAMBERY)
The book of the Turkish Admiral Sidi Ali Reis, entitled "_Mirat ul
Memalik_" (the Mirror of Countries), is in many ways interesting. In
the first place, on account of the personality of the author, in whom
we see a man of many varied accomplishments; a genuine type of the
Islamitic culture of his time, and a representative of that class of
official and military dignitaries to whose influence it is chiefly due
that the Ottoman Empire, extending over three continents, attained to
that eminent height of culture which it occupied during the reign of
Suleiman the Great. Sidi Ali is the descendant of an illustrious family
connected with the arsenal at Galata, in whom love for the sea seems to
have been hereditary, and hence, as the Turkish publisher points out in
his preface, Sidi Ali, being thoroughly acquainted with the nautical
science of his day, excels as author on maritime subjects.
As a man of general culture, he was in harmony with the prevailing
notions of his time, as mathematician, astronomer, and geographer; and
also as poet, theologian, and in all branches of general literature;
sometimes wielding his pen in writing lyrical or occasional verses,
at other times entering into keen controversial disputes upon certain
Koran theses or burning schismatic questions.
Besides all this he was a warrior, proving himself as undaunted in
fighting the elements as in close combat with the Portuguese, who in
point of accoutrement had far the advantage over him. But what stands
out above all these accomplishments is his glowing patriotism and
his unwavering faith in the power and the greatness of the Ottoman
Empire. He boasts that he never ceases to hope to see Gujarat and Ormuz
joined to the Ottoman realm; his one desire is to see his Padishah
ruler of the world, and wherever he goes and whatever he sees, Rum
(Turkey) always remains in his eyes the most beautiful, the richest,
and the most cultured land of the whole world. The Turkish Admiral has,
moreover, a singularly happy way of expressing himself on this subject
of his preference for his own Padishah and his native land; and this
required no small amount of courage and tact where he had to face proud
Humayun or Thamasp, no less conceited than the former.
With regard to the things which he saw and heard in non-Mussulman
circles and districts in India, his accounts are poor compared with the
descriptions of Ibn Batuta and other Moslem travelers. Sidi Ali has had
hardly any intercourse with Hindus, and his route lay almost entirely
through districts where the ruling caste, with whom he principally
had to deal, were adherents to the Mohammedan faith. It does appear
somewhat strange that he had such unbounded reverence for the Sultan of
Turkey, and upheld him as the legitimate Caliph, although the caliphate
had only fallen into the hands of the Ottoman rulers a few years
previously with the overthrow of Tuman Bey by Selim II; and this seems
the more strange, as Asia is so tenaciously conservative that even to
this day the Turkish claim to the caliphate is a disputed point.
The authoritative and executive power of Turkey, formerly the terror of
the Christian world, could not fail to exercise its influence upon the
Moslem lands of Asia and their unstable governments, torn and harassed
as they were by internal strife and petty wars, while the sultans of
Turkey basked, not only in the glory of spiritual preferment, but also
in that of temporal superiority. The picture which our author draws
of the government of India and the East is certainly a very sad one.
Civil wars and mutinies against the rulers of the land are every-day
occurrences; the roads swarm with highwaymen, and even during the reign
of the much-extolled Humayun, all intercourse with other lands was
fraught with every imaginable kind of danger. Their rulers all suffer
from a peculiar form of conceit, like the ruler of Bokhara, "who asked
me, pointing to a ragged, motley crowd of ruffians, whether the army of
the Sultan of Turkey were not exactly like this." Humayun, Thamasp, and
even Borak Khan of Bokhara, all delighted in drawing parallels between
themselves and Sultan Suleiman.
One thing, however, in the account of the Turkish Admiral is certainly
surprising, namely the few facts by which he illustrates the Sultan's
policy in Moslem Asia. We have always been under the impression
that the Turks, during the era of their supreme power and universal
sway, directed their attention more toward the Christian lands of
the West, than toward the Moslem lands of the East, and that as a
matter of fact their campaigns were nothing short of marauding raids,
and empty conquests, while they might have utilized the many means
at their disposal and the high prestige in which they stood toward
the consolidation of their power in Asia, which would have been
comparatively easy. This reproach is neither unfounded nor unmerited,
for although the finest of the Ottoman rulers, Sultan Selim, did direct
his attention chiefly toward the East, as proved by his campaigns
against Persia and Egypt, most of his predecessors and successors have
occupied themselves solely in making war in the West. Asia, which
offered little to tempt the mercenary janissaries, was meanwhile left
pretty well to its own devices, without any fixed form or plan of
government. But, as in this narrative the threads of the policy pursued
by those sultans, one by one, come to light, we are struck with the
fact that, after all, they were not quite so short-sighted as we gave
them credit for, and that now and again they have given a thought to
the bringing about of a better state of things.