Un călător otoman prin ţările române: Nu’man Efendi (cca. 1700 – cca. 1755)
An 18th Century Ottoman Traveller: Nu’man Efendi

Summary/Abstract: The present study comprises an annotated translation of a travel account authored by an Ottoman dignitary involved in the Ottoman-Habsburg border commission established after the peace of Belgrade. Nu'man Efendi, whose brief biography is sketched in the introduction, had an impressive career as a mufti and a judge, which began in Tabriz and continued in Caffa. After being appointed in the Ottoman-Habsburg border commission, Nu'man Efendi undertook a long journey in the frontier region. One of the main challenges the commission had faced was to delineate the frontier across the numerous Danube islands in-between Ada-Kaleh and Belgrade. Nu'man Efendi's travel account through Banat, Transylvania and Wallachia, from 1739 to 1741, is part of one of his larger works, entitled Thoughtful Measures, preserved in only two manuscripts, in Vienna and Istanbul. The orally embedded text focuses on the discussions of the commission members, providing an autobiographical justification of Nu'man Efendi and, at the same time, an explicit criticism of his superior, Hacı Mehmed. The text regarding the Romanian lands, previously mentioned by Aurel Decei and Tasin Gemil, is now translated for the first time, using the edition by Ali Ibrahim Savaș.

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